Is There A Place For Me?
by Seanchaidh
Summary: As the boat drifts away and the Mall Rats watch their home destroyed, they reflect on what life might have been like had the virus never happened. Short prologue, then full chapters. Rated T because the evil plot bunnies took over in chapter 28!
1. Prologue

_**Is There A Place For Me?**_

Prologue

As the boat moved ever further from the land, the remaining Mall Rats and their friends looked back at the fading city shoreline.

"Our home is gone," Salene said, tearfully, "Everything is gone!"

"But we've still got each other," Amber replied, gazing up, adoringly, at Jay.

"And who knows where we'd be without each other," Jay murmured, gazing back at Amber.

"Ugh, sickening!" Lex muttered, turning away from the happy couple to see Trudy staring at them and fighting to keep the tears away; she caught his glance and turned her attention to Brady.

"At least we have something to thank the virus for, then," Lottie piped up, "If the virus had never happened, we might never have met."

Each of the Mall Rats then looked from one to the other, thinking this through. Amber's gaze travelled in turn over her son, Jay, Trudy, Brady and her older friends. Salene and May exchanged an awkward glance. Jack caught Ellie's gaze, then looked away, afraid that she might somehow be able to read his mind and see the still painful scars on their relationship and his wish that she had only met him, not Luke. Lex and Ram exchanged uneasy glances, as did Slade, Ruby and Ebony. Trudy and Jay caught each other's eye, then looked hastily away.

After all they had been through, at least they could thank the virus for something, couldn't they?


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Ah, your here at last!"

A voice cut through the mess of directions clouding Jack Thompson's brain. He looked up. At a door in front of him stood a tall man with a moustache. Jack smiled, relieved, and nodded.

"S-Sorry, I got lost. H-Hi, I'm Jack. Jack Thompson," he said, offering his hand to the older man.

"By process of elimination, I had already gathered that!" the man replied, ignoring Jack's hand, "You're the last one to arrive! I'm Professor Lamarck. Come in, pick a seat and we'll get started."

"B-Better late than never, huh?" Jack half-smiled but the professor was not amused and proceeded to his desk with a derisive snort.

"Now that we are all here," Lamarck began, standing by his desk as Jack found a seat, "we can finally begin. Today is an introduction to what you will spend your second, or in some cases first, year here doing. You will spend some of the time in the programming lab, some time in the design lab and the remainder of the day in the technology lab. You have all been allocated groups according to your known ability. Each group has been allocated a third year to show them round and take them through each of the labs. Groups cannot be changed unless I change them. If anyone feels that the pace is proceeding too quickly for them, or that they are being held back, speak to me. If anyone has any problems with their group members or leaders, live with it! In the real world you cannot choose who you work with. Any questions? No? Good. You will find your groups listed on the classroom notice board, alongside which will be your group's timetable. These young men and women beside me," he flourished a hand towards the four young men and two young women standing by the far side of the desk in a neat line, "will be your group leaders. They will now sort you into your groups. I leave you in their capable hands."

Having finished his somewhat brusque oration, Professor Lamarck strode quickly out of the room. Jack, feeling rather shell-shocked, blinked rapidly.

"Don't worry," a young man sitting next to Jack whispered conspiratorially, "I hear he's always like that."

"Jack Thompson," Jack gulped and offered his hand to the young man who, unlike the professor, shook it warmly, "So you're new here too then?"

"Yeah, I skipped a couple of years. What can I say: I'm a child prodigy!" the young man rolled his eyes and grinned, "My name's Ved."

"Ved?" Jack looked confused.

"Vernon Englebert Dawson," Ved explained, grimacing, "but please, don't ever repeat that: I hate it! It's not fair: my brother only got saddled with Jayson Tyler Dawson! He still tells everyone to call him Jay though!"

"I'd definitely stick with the 'Ved' if I were in your shoes!" Jack laughed as the third year 'Group Leaders' began to call out names.

XXXX

"Martin, can you pick me up some of Brady's favourite milkshake on the way home?" Trudy asked, hurriedly, down the phone.

"I-I'll try," her husband replied, "but I might miss the shops. Turner wants me to work late again."

"What!" Trudy cried, "Again? But we hardly ever see you! Doesn't he know you've got a wife and child?"

"Of course he knows, Trudy! That may even be why he keeps getting me to work late: so that he can pay me more overtime! I'm lucky to have this job, y'know!"

"I know, honey. I just miss you, that's all."

"Well maybe you should see if my beloved brother can get it for you: he never turns down a chance to see his half-namesake!"

Trudy bit her lip, hearing the spite in her husband's voice. He was just stressed, she told herself as she heard the receiver click. He had been working too hard, but they needed the money what with the rent overdue, Brady's birthday coming up and her not getting any acting work for months now. He would be okay once the pressure was off. Trudy tried to convince herself of this as she once again picked up the phone and began to dial Bray's mobile number.

XXXX

"Alice! Are you in here?" Ellie called as she dumped her bag on the hall table and flicked her long, blonde hair out from under her jacket.

The farmhouse was quiet. It always was now that it was just Alice living here. There were usually the occasional hired hands here and there out on the farm, but Ellie was back from college so rarely that she never really got to know any of them before they moved on somewhere else. No one stayed long. Alice was intimidating even once you got to know her: to those who didn't she was just plain terrifying!

Ellie wandered into the capacious kitchen and poured herself a glass of juice from a near-empty carton in the fridge. Finishing it, she deposited the carton in a nearby bin and walked over to the window with her drink. She could see a couple of the farm-hands busy in the yard and a small crowd over towards the orchard. At the centre of the crowd, she could make out her sister's coppery curls shining in the bright autumnal sunlight.

Once she had finished her drink and washed her glass, Ellie made her way out to the orchard. The path was thankfully free of too much mud and she soon caught up with the group. Most of them appeared to be students as they were standing taking notes and asking the occasional question as Alice explained the basics of cider-making. Seeing Ellie, she waved and continued talking. A handful of students glanced round to see the newcomer, then turned their attention back to their lesson. One, however, let his gaze linger a little longer on the pretty blonde, catching her eye and returning her smile before looking back to his work.

Ellie stayed until Alice's talk was finished and she began to lead the group back to the farm. Walking beside her sister, Alice explained that the group was from a local agricultural college that sometimes brought their students over on field trips.

"So this isn't the first time they've been here?" Ellie asked.

"Well it's the first time for this lot, but not their tutor: he's been here a few times," Alice replied, "But anyway: what are you doing home? I thought I wouldn't see you for another few weeks!"

"Doctor Gordon's had to take some time off: his father or brother or somebody just died. He'll be away for a couple of weeks."

"Poor man!"

"I know: isn't it great! No college for two whole weeks!"

"Ellie!"

"Oh, yeah, not so great for him, I know, but it's not like he's family or something. Besides," Ellie shrugged then hugged Alice, "it means I get to come back here and spend some time with my wonderful big sister!"

"Hmm, well don't think that not being a permanent fixture here doesn't mean you won't have any work to do!"

"Oh, don't worry: I'll pull my weight!"

"Excuse me," said a voice.

The two sisters turned to see the speaker. The voice came from the young man whose gaze Ellie had met during Alice's talk. He was a young, mixed-race, Asian-featured student with shining dark eyes and a handsome mop of curly black hair.

"Hi," Ellie smiled as she greeted the youth.

"Hi," he smiled in return, never once taking his eyes off the younger sister, "I was wondering if you lived here and, if you did, if I could, perhaps, take you out for dinner sometime?"

"I'd like that," Ellie's smile broadened, "My name's Ellie, Ellie Carruthers."

"I'm Dal," replied the young man, extending his hand, "Dal Jefferson."

XXXX

"Come on, mate," a heavy built young man said, gently, through the grill at the city jail, "Don't give up on me now! You've only got three more weeks until you're out of here!"

"I know, Ryan, I know. It's just, I've been in here for almost two years already! Getting out is so near, but three weeks just seems like a lifetime! Look, mate, I've missed so much already! First the wedding, I'm really sorry about that, I hope you found another best man, and now you've got a baby on the way! You're a great mate, Ryan, you're all that's kept me going in here, but I just feel that you've done so much for me and I haven't been able to do a single thing for you!"

"But you will have, mate. You will have. I've talked it over with Zandra and, not to count our chickens before they're hatched, or children before they're born for that matter, we want you to be the baby's godfather."

"Oh, Ryan, how can I be a godfather? Godfather's are supposed to look after their godchildren; keep them out of trouble and the like: I can't even keep myself out of trouble!"

"You'll be a great godfather, Lex," Ryan said, earnestly, "Maybe you have made mistakes, but you'll learn from them and you'll be able to relate to the baby in a totally different way. You're great with kids! I've seen you, remember? You won't get that argument round me!"

Lex smiled and looked to the side. The vertical scar that ran down his face, crossing his left eyebrow, eye and cheek, stood out in bold relief for a moment, reminding Ryan of the violent incident that had put his friend behind bars. The raven haired man laughed a little and shook his head before turning back to his friend.

"You're too good to me, mate," he said, warmly, "I'd be honoured to be the kid's godfather, I really would. Who'd you have in mind for the godmother?"

"A friend of Zandra's from the spa: she's a masseuse too but she also works in the naturopathy section."

"Zandra's still loving being a beauty therapist then?"

"Oh, of course: she'll never change!"

"What's her friend called?"

"Tai San."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"And so we're going out for dinner tomorrow night!" Dal finished, excitedly, sitting down at the kitchen table of his flat with a large bowl of rather oddly coloured noodles.

"I still can't believe you just walked up there and asked her out!" Amber replied, aghast, "You know, in some cultures, you could be shot for that!"

"Yes, Amber, I know," Dal said, with the tired air of one replying for the umpteenth time to a persistent child; then, shaking his head, he added, "I sometimes wonder if you picked the right modules to go along with that politics course!"

"Every good politician must be able to... to empathise with the beliefs and customs of other countries."

"And does every good politician need a good understanding of alternative medicine too?"

"Hey, you never know when that might come in handy! Health is one of the big issues in politics!"

"Just don't try and poison me with you amateur decoctions or whatever!"

Amber wrinkled her nose and raised her eyebrows at this as she watched Dal add his favoured tomato ketchup to his plate.

"I'm getting along really well in that course, I don't know why you don't trust me! Besides, I have a great lab partner and she really knows her stuff. She wouldn't let me poison my flatmate."

"Or anyone else, I hope!" Dal added, cheerfully stuffing the, rather unique, combination of food into his mouth.

"I swear: if this world disappeared tomorrow, as long as you had ketchup, you would eat anything!"

XXXX

"How's that programme doing?" Ved asked as Jack stepped over to the water fountain for a break.

They had been in the lab for most of the day, although they had been allowed an hour long break for lunch. It was a large lab for such a small group and, when Jack had asked if they were the only ones using it, he had been told that an IT class from another college would be sharing the lab with them. Further questions proved that the class in question were mostly journalism students in the middle of a project, whose only classes, for their IT module, had had to be moved to the Polytechnic College as their own lecturer had taken compassionate leave for two weeks. Satisfied with his investigative powers, Jack had returned to his computer and reported all this to Ved at the earliest opportunity.

"Getting there," Jack replied, taking a sip of the cold water the machine had produced, "It's fairly standard stuff, really: just time consuming!"

"I know what you mean!" Ved rolled his eyes, "I know we're just starting, but surely they could give us something more challenging than this!"

"The idea, my young friends, is not to challenge you," the group leader in charge of Jack and Ved's group cut in, "But to find out what you know, what your strengths are, and how fast you are."

The young man had spoken slowly and calmly, with the air of one who is used to leadership and command. Something about him, though, made Jack dislike him. He was of a tall, slim build with messy, dark hair, expressive eyes and a condescending turn to his, rather oversized, mouth. Seeing Jack's hesitancy, Ved stepped in to introduce the young man.

"Jack, this is a friend of my brother's, Ramsey MacDonald," Ved said as the group leader, who, so far, had done nothing more than shepherd them into a lab and give them their tasks, extended his hand, "But he prefers to be called Ram."

XXXX

"Oh, you are kidding me!" Ellie cried, drawing her sister through from the other room.

Ellie had insisted on spending the rest of the day indoors, unpacking and tidying up. Alice was well aware of her sister's transformation into the mud-shy city girl, but she let it go, reminding herself that Ellie was as often a hindrance as a help! Now she found her younger sister seated in front of her laptop, reading her e-mails and blowing on her newly painted nails. It was not the fist exclamation of disbelief to emanate from the small room now used as a study and Alice was certain it would not be the last.

"What's up?" Alice asked, out of habit and duty rather than any wish to actually know what new triviality was about to ruin her sister's life.

"They've allocated us to different colleges! I have to go to the Tech! It's because of that stupid computer course they made me take: the Tech is the only college with enough free computers to house our computer class while Doctor Gordon is away! Why couldn't they just give us a couple of weeks off! Now we have to share a room with a bunch of geeks!"

XXXX

Lex lay on his bed and sighed. He had been going over the events of the day. He really did owe Ryan so much: he was a true friend. When all other 'friends' had deserted him, Ryan had remained, steadfast and true. Now, when so much of the outer world had moved on around him, Ryan still remained, welcoming him back to reality and the outer world with open arms and almost brotherly friendship.

He remembered, with painful accuracy, the events of two years ago. It was at the rehearsal dinner for Ryan and Zandra's wedding. He could remember how happy everyone was and how beautiful Zandra had looked. He could remember the whole thing going swimmingly right up until he had got up to give his speech. He could remember the look on Ryan's face when the police had barged in and rushed right up to the top table, surrounding him as he began his Best Man's speech with the usual, clichéd phrases as if each word were a deadly weapon. That face, it's expression so tired and let down, was etched in his memory forever.

He pulled down the photo from the otherwise bare wall of his cell. It was a photo of Zandra. She was wearing a gorgeous light blue dress that accentuated all her good points and made her look beautiful. Lex smiled at it. The picture, unable to do anything else, smiled back. As Lex shifted his position on the thin, hard mattress, his fingers caught the other half of the picture, folded back and out of sight. With a guilty sigh, Lex glanced at the figure on the hidden half, then folded the photo back into it's usual state and stuck it, firmly, back onto the wall.

XXXX

"Honey, I'm home," Martin called, with forced cheerfulness for Brady's sake.

The only answer he received was the sound of distant laughter and giggling: his wife and his daughter. Presuming them to be playing in the lounge, he discarded his coat and briefcase and hurried through, relaxing at the thought of a happy, family evening. Halfway down the hall, however, he stopped, hearing a third voice added to the scene: Bray's.

Feeling the anger, which he so frequently fought to repress, boiling up inside him, Martin stormed down the hall corridor to the lounge. He stopped at the door, surveying the scene before him: there was a game of Twister in full swing, which Brady seemed to be winning while her mother teetered to and fro in a very unsteady position. At last, Trudy's balance gave way and she toppled over, much to the delight of her daughter, who had thus won the game.

What enraged Martin most, however, was not that his brother was there, playing the games he should have been playing with his wife and daughter, but rather Bray's reaction at this point. Bray had been sitting, cross legged on the floor, with his back to the lounge door, in charge of the spinner that dictated the moves of the game. When Trudy, forced into a precarious position, had lost her balance, she had fallen directly into her brother-in-law's lap. Bray had caught her impulsively and she now half sat, half lay, in his arms gazing up at him and giggling like a child. In turn, he gazed down at her, also laughing. Trudy's girlish giggles were suddenly cut off, however, by Brady's enthusiastic and excited cry of "Daddy!" as the child got up and ran to meet her father.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Martin, honey, please calm down," Trudy's voice shook as she pleaded with her husband.

"Calm down? _CALM DOWN?_" Martin shrieked, his face almost purple with fury, "I'm out there working myself into an early grave for you while you're back here carrying on with my brother and you want me to calm down? I manage to get away from work early for once, risking my job in the process, just so that I can spend some time with my daughter before she goes to bed, and I get home to find my wife in my brother's arms and all she can say is 'Honey, calm down'!"

Bray had left a little earlier, and Brady had been put to bed, but as soon as Martin had Trudy to himself, the rage that had been simmering under the surface had suddenly boiled over and he towered over his young wife as she cowered in a corner of the room, a nasty bruise beginning to well up on her left cheek.

"I have given up EVERYTHING for you! _EVERYTHING!_ And yet all you do is moan and whine and run to my brother whenever possible!" Martin reached down and dragged Trudy to her feet by her hair, "Do you think I don't know you only slept with me to make him jealous? Do you really think I never noticed the looks you threw at him, that you still throw at him?" Trudy whimpered as her husband shook her roughly and continued with his tirade, "Have you _any idea_ how _humiliating_ it is to watch you fawn over him like a _cheap whore_? Not that I should be surprised: that's all you are!"

Flinging her back against the wall, Martin raised his fist and knocked the tearful Trudy down. Her head hit the wall on her right, hard, and as she sank, dazed, to the floor, she heard Martin's screams continue until they became no more than a distant muddle of noise ringing in her ears. Through hazy eyes she saw him storm out of the room then, as if the single light bulb that lit the room was fading, everything dimmed and went black.

XXXX

Jack was working late in the library, along with many other students. He'd skipped dinner and now was beginning to feel hungry. Heading down the corridor to the nearest snack room, one of the few places in the building where students were allowed to eat and drink and where vending machines were provided for this purpose, he stopped suddenly. Listening intently, he heard the sounds of voices coming from the other side of a bookcase. He was sure he recognised one of them. As he listened, he gradually managed to put a face to the voice: Ram!

"I don't want to hear 'getting there', Jay," Ram was saying, his cool tones slithering over the words as easily as a snake over sand, "I want to hear 'done'!"

"I'm not commanding an elite army, Ram," Jay replied, stonily, "I've only got a handful of recruits from the Sports Society and even fewer from the Debating Society, and most of them ask too many questions."

"That's what they do, Jay: they debate! That's why they're in the Debating Society. We knew we'd have a hard time with them, but if they accepted everything readily, they wouldn't be worth having. We just have to make sure we convince them to stay on our side. Put Mega in charge of winning them over: he could convince an astronaut that the earth was flat!"

"I don't know: I don't trust him."

"Nonsense. Mega is one of my most loyal comrades. He's been with me since the start of this project. He's a genius when it comes to telling computers what to believe and almost as good with people. Put him in charge of them."

Jack had been intrigued with the conversation up until this point, when he saw a young woman walk round the corner of a corridor opposite and into the snack room. She hadn't even glanced in his direction, engrossed instead in talking loudly to another, slightly older, girl who walked beside her with a long-suffering look imprinted on her face. The two girls looked so alike, they could have been, and very possibly were, sisters.

"I mean, who does she think she is, Siva?" the younger girl had asked her companion, "she just struts in there from that weird little hocus-pocus class that she does and totally takes over the discussion!"

"Natural remedies are not hocus-pocus, sis," the older girl replied, proving Jack's assumption of their acquaintance to be correct, "And from the sound of things, she didn't interrupt a discussion, she cooled down an argument! An argument you were having against the rest of the class! She even took your side: she did you a favour!"

"I do _not_ need favours from the likes of Amber Jennings! Besides, she was just playing Devil's Advocate and you could totally tell! I would have been better off without that kind of help!"

As the two girls disappeared into the snack room and the door swung shut behind them, Jack started walking again, forgetting Jay and Ram, and followed the sisters into the small room.

XXXX

A young man with spiky hair kicked at a stone and gazed up at the building before him. It had been his home for most of his life, but now he was too old to remain there and the orphanage had sent him packing. He'd found himself a crummy little apartment, with paper peeling off the walls and no carpets, but if he didn't get a job soon, he wouldn't be able to keep it much longer. His rent would be due in a month and he barely had enough money left in the bank to feed himself until then.

XXXX

Alice looked in on her sister and shook her head. What had happened to her? She used to be such a sweet kid: helping out on the farm, playing with the new piglets when they arrived each spring, running away from the boys and young men who helped out both before and after their parents died. Now, it seemed, it was the boys who had better run away from her! She wasn't sure, but she thought she could recall Ellie mentioning some guy from her college course who was taking her out. Now there was this guy from the agricultural college. Soon there would be some other poor sucker from the polytechnic. She wondered if any of them ever found out about each other, or if Ellie ever paid for her own meals!

XXXX

Dal couldn't sleep. He had tried counting sheep, but that hadn't worked. He had tried pacing round the kitchen a few times, but Amber had just yelled at him to go to bed and stop making so much noise - his night vision wasn't the best in the world and a few chairs now lay on their sides. He had tried meditating, but he couldn't concentrate. He had even tried reading one of his textbooks, but his eyes were starting to sting and he couldn't focus properly. So now he just lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling and picturing her face. Ellie Carruthers: angel incarnate; his dream woman, if only he could fall asleep to dream about her! He sighed and picked up another textbook.

XXXX

Zandra Collins stood, wrapped in a night-dress and dressing gown, in the small room that had become her private study since her marriage to Ryan. Absent-mindedly, she let her hand glide over her swollen stomach as she reached down to a drawer and pulled out a battered photo frame. It had been hidden beneath numerous random items and anyone who found it might have thought that it had just been thrown in there long ago and forgotten, and that it held no specific importance or significance.

She turned it over to gaze at the photograph within. It portrayed two people, standing together happily. One was herself, wearing a light blue dress that she had chosen to set off her best features. Lifting the hand that had rested on her stomach, she traced the features of the young man in the picture. It had been taken three years ago and they had both changed so much since then, but in some ways they were still so much the same. She closed her eyes, remembering the feel of his muscular arms around her. Sighing, she replaced the photo in the drawer, closed the drawer and locked it. Turning, she picked up her glass of water and headed back up to her bedroom, where her husband slept peacefully. As she slipped into the bed beside him she reminded herself of words long since spoken:

"He must never know."


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Three weeks had passed. Slowly but surely, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, they had passed. Lex looked up and saw the sky.

"Over here, mate!" Ryan called as his friend finally walked free of the jail's tall gates.

"Ryan!" Lex called, waving and hurrying over, "It is so good to be out of there!"

"Come on, let's get you home," Ryan smiled and placed a hand on Lex's shoulder, escorting him over to his car, "You gotta have a shower and a shave and try on your new suit!"

"New suit?" Lex looked up, surprised, but pleased, "Mate, you didn't have to go to any trouble!"

"It wasn't any trouble! Zandra got it, and you know how she loves shopping! Besides, you'll need it for work."

"Work?"

"I told you, didn't I? Back when the company started. I said there would be a job waiting for you when you got out. Well, there is and you start today!"

"I don't deserve a friend like you, Ryan," Lex put a hand on his friend's shoulder and looked him straight in the face, "You're a good man, Ry. Best I know."

xxxx

Ellie slumped over her desk. Three weeks she had been here. _Three weeks!_ Who knew Doctor Gordon and his brother were so close? Now the guy was off for grief counselling! Still, the time hadn't been a total loss. She still got regular e-mails from her boyfriend, Luke; her proper boyfriend, that was. He was such a sweetie: always sending her e-mails while she was stuck here, telling her all about what was going on back at their own college and how many girls had hit on him at work that night (he worked in the college bar). He was a real catch; and he was totally devoted to her. That might change, however, if he found out about the others! Not that Ellie had any intention of letting him find out. She had been seeing Dal for three weeks now - going out for meals and to see films and so on - but he lived on the outskirts of the city, like herself, so they never really came into the city centre, where the polytechnic was based. This gave Ellie that little bit of extra freedom she had been looking for. Luke would probably never come face to face with Dal, nor Dal with Luke, and neither of them would ever bump into her latest beau: Jack.

Jack had been a pushover. Ellie knew she would have to get one of the geeks she was sharing a room with to help her with the computers here - she was hopeless with anything other than a simple word processor and Luke had always helped her before - but she thought she would have had a little more work to do than just sit down next to the cutest one and smile! He was sweet though, for all his geekyness, and Ellie was starting to genuinely like him a bit. If Luke ever did wise up and decide to let her go, Jack would make a good stand in!

xxxx

"Mrs Fielding?"

Trudy looked up to see one of the young maids at the door with a trolley of linen.

"It's okay, you can come in, Cloe," Trudy smiled, then winced: the bruises on her face still hurt a little.

"How are you feeling today?" Cloe asked as she began changing the bed linen.

"Oh, you know," Trudy tried to sound cheerful, "Another day goes by and I still haven't seen my husband. That's always a good thing now."

"I don't know how you coped for as long as you did!"

"Oh, you know how it is when there's a little one involved: you'll do anything to try and make sure they get to grow up with a normal family."

"There's nothing normal about abuse."

"No, I guess I finally figured that out."

"You were lucky," the maid continued as she finished her task and headed for the door, "He nearly killed you."

Trudy's smile faltered a little.

"If he finds me," she replied, "he still might!"

xxxx

Jack sat in front of the computer screen, trying to concentrate. He had seen her again, his mystery woman. It was odd: he'd never really been that bothered about women, but he'd hoped they'd take an interest in him. Now it seemed that they were like busses: you spend ages waiting for the one you want then three come along at once!

First there was Ebony: the girl he had seen in the library, three weeks ago, arguing with her sister, or arguing at her, anyway! She intrigued him. Her sharp grey eyes had seemed to pierce straight through him that day when he followed her into the snack room and they still did every time he saw her. She was out of his reach, however: a beautiful, delicate flower, but with a temper that could make her as deadly as a Venus flytrap!

If she had recognised him the next time they met, she hadn't shown it. A group of politics students had joined their class to learn a bit more about a new system that had just come out and she had been among them. Each politics student was paired up with one of the programming students and he had got paired with her. She had barely seemed to notice he was there, only asking him the occasional question when the tutor went over something she didn't understand and never mincing her words. He had paid attention to her though. That hadn't pleased Ellie!

Ellie he had met almost immediately after seeing Ebony for the first time. The memory of that first meeting had still been bouncing around his mind at the time, brief though it had been. He had just gone up and asked if he could move the spare chair from their table and Ebony had looked at him once, raised her eyebrows, then ignored him. It had been her sister Siva who had answered him. Faced with such indifference, was it any wonder that, when the pretty blonde hurried to sit down next to him, smiling warmly at him as the rest of her journalism class filed into the remaining seats, he had taken notice? They had been seeing each other for almost three weeks now: lunch dates, walks in the park and, occasionally, a meal or a movie. She always said it was difficult for her to get into and out of the city centre in the evenings.

Then there was number three: his mystery woman. She also intrigued him, but in a different way to Ebony. Ebony was a tough, powerful, beautiful woman who only occasionally let slip a hint that there was more behind that steely façade. Only occasionally, but he had seen it nonetheless. This mystery woman, however, was the total opposite of Ebony. She was pretty, or at least, Jack got the impression she was pretty, but her face was usually hidden by a scarf or veil and he had never really seen her features properly. The only times he had seen her in fact, was when she was picking her daughter up from the university crèche. It was odd, because she wasn't a student at the university and had to have a special pass to get in. Jack wondered if she were in trouble as it was well known that the university crèche and day school was the securest in the city and sometimes used by the police. Another sign that she might be in trouble was the very obvious bodyguard trying to look inconspicuous a few paces behind her and the other one who had taken up residence in the crèche!

He had got a closer look only yesterday, though. He had even got to speak to her. She had been carrying some books in one hand, her daughter with the other and had a bag of shopping hanging on her wrist. Predictably, the strap of the bag broke and it fell, spilling groceries everywhere. The bodyguard had taken a quick glance around before stepping in to help, but not before Jack had rushed to her aid and began shovelling items back in the bag. She had thanked him and he had got a sense of a smile through the veil. The gratitude in those few words had had as much impact upon him as Ebony's icy coldness, but the bodyguard had hurried over to take the bag from him and hustle the woman on her way. What had really intrigued Jack about that meeting was the fact that, by her voice and mannerisms alone, he could tell that the woman, who had a daughter almost old enough for her first year at school, was barely more than a year or two older than him!

xxxx

Ebony thumbed through another book. Nothing. This search was taking forever! Why did she always get landed with the impossible subjects! She glanced around the library again. The only people present were a few familiar faces from her own class, a few unfamiliar ones and the geek-boy she had sat with at that IT tutorial. She watched as the blonde who had hovered over him so protectively at the end of that class walked over and demanded his attention. She was a pushy one and Ebony didn't much care that they had got off to a bad start. If she thought that every girl he sat with in class was after him then that was her problem, not Ebony's. Shame, really, she thought: he seemed like a nice guy, but the blonde made it more hassle than it was worth to find out. Then again, she told herself, who's she to decide who I choose to call my friend?

Snapping the latest useless book shut and placing it back on the shelf, Ebony turned and extracted a small compact and lipstick. Making sure her appearance was exactly as she wanted it, she turned back to where the blonde appeared to be whining at the boy to take her for lunch. Ebony raised her eyebrows and smirked.

"You want competition, honey?" Ebony murmured quietly, "You got it!"


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Come on, Jack!" Ellie moaned, leaning over Jack's shoulder, her hands on the back of his chair, "We've been here all morning and I'm starving! You can't tell me the canteen is going to be too busy now: it's half-way through the afternoon! I thought you said you didn't have much to do!"

"Yes, Ellie, but what I do have to do takes its time!" Jack replied, snappishly, "I mean, come on! It's not like I'm keeping you chained to me: you're free to go grab some lunch and come back you know!"

"But we spend so little time together," Ellie wound her arms around Jack's neck and nuzzled his cheek, "I just wanna make the most of it!"

"Ellie! Not here!"

"What? There's hardly anyone here and, anyway, if you won't take me out for lunch I'm pretty sure the snack room's empty. We could..."

"Ellie! I am _trying_ to work!"

"Why do you _think_," whispered Ellie, kissing his chin and working her way up the line of his jaw as her hands spread out over his chest, "that I am _trying_... so _hard_... to distract you!"

"Oh-kay cut that out! Cut that out! Ellie!"

"Not interrupting am I?" Ebony drawled from about two feet away; neither Jack nor Ellie had noticed her approach.

Ellie stopped nibbling on Jack's ear and brought her hands back up to his shoulders.

"Yes, actually," she snapped, "You were!"

Jack rubbed the back of his by now bright red neck and raised his eyebrows in an expression which screamed 'but thank goodness you did!' without Ellie noticing.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Ebony simpered, stalking up and leaning against the desk right next to where Jack's hand rested on the computer mouse, "I was just hoping Jack here could help me find something on the new system: I'm hopeless with computers!"

"Yeah, no problem!" Jack replied, quickly.

"Jack! We were going for lunch!" Ellie screeched, raising a few glances from the sparse gathering of students on that level.

"I'm not hungry, Ellie! Look, you go! I'll be here when you get back and, I promise, I'll make it up to you tomorrow! Please, sweetheart, go!"

Ellie opened her mouth as if to say something, then glanced at Ebony and thought better of it. Instead she turned her expression into a hateful glare that she threw straight at Ebony. The other girl raised an eyebrow as one side of her lip curled into a satisfied smile and watched as Ellie flounced out of the room.

"Well then, Jack," Ebony said, turning back to her prey, "where were we?"

xxxx

Trudy picked Brady up from the university crèche and made her way out of the building followed by two bodyguards. The taller, broader man, Ryan, was her usual protector and he ran the firm the police were using. He had been unwilling to let her case go to any of his employees, taking her personal protection on himself from the start while he left one of his more trusted, if somewhat goofy, men in charge of the crèche itself. The young man, Darryl, got on well with the children there and seemed perfect for the job, if a little lacking in muscle.

The new man, Lex, certainly wasn't lacking in muscle or menace! Ryan had introduced him as a close friend who had finally agreed to join his company and a man he would trust with his own life and that of his pregnant wife. Trudy had looked him over, intrigued, while Brady had stared up at the newcomer and then hid her face in her mother's skirts! At this, Lex had crouched down and talked to the child quietly and gently; so gentle were his tones, in fact, that Trudy could not even make out what he said. Whatever it was, however, it worked and Brady was soon giggling happily. Today both men would be with her. Tomorrow, it would be just the three of them: just Brady, her and Lex!

xxxx

"Honestly, Jewel," Amber sighed, "I don't think I'm ever gonna get the hang of this!"

"You are doing well, Amber," Jewel replied, encouragingly, "Just believe in yourself. All those questions you asked me just now, you already knew the answer to! You know more than you think, you just need to realise that and believe it!"

"Facts I can handle," Amber pulled a wry face, "it's the fiddley bits that throw me! I'm okay when it comes to which herb does what, but when it gets to growing them and drying them or preparing them, then I start to have problems."

"That is just lack of experience," her friend assured her, placing her hands on each of Amber's shoulders and looking her straight in the eye, "You have the knowledge and the understanding. The skill will come with time."

Amber smiled, looking back into her friend's clear blue eyes. The faith Jewel placed in her did help to keep her confidence high, she only worried, every once in a while, that that faith wasn't misplaced.

xxxx

KC collapsed into the tacky, plastic-covered cubicle bench in the supermarket canteen with a sigh. His sigh turned into a groan as a young, mousey-haired girl bounced into the room. Seeing him, she bounced over to his table and sat down next to him, her slight frame blocking his only way out of the three-walled cubicle.

"Hey, Patsy," KC sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Hi, KC!" Patsy replied, enthusiastically, "Whatcha doin'?"

"Break," was the monosyllabic reply.

Unfortunately, Patsy was not yet used to subtle hints and decided that KC's precious break time would be best used listening to her tell him everything she had done today and several 'confidential' conversations that she had had, word for word! Eventually, KC was able to make the excuse that his break was over, which wasn't really an excuse as it had actually been over for a good ten minutes, and then escape. As he hid in the relative quietude of the stockroom, he rolled his eyes again and wondered why on earth the kid had decided to have a crush on him!

xxxx

"Bray, I have to find her! She has my daughter!"

"I can't let you do that, Martin! It's for your own good as well as hers and Brady's!"

"Ever playing the big brother!" Martin sneered, unwilling to let go his hold on Bray's door frame, "Were you this concerned for my welfare when you were sleeping with my wife?"

"You know nothing like that ever happened! We were only ever friends! I never, ever looked at Trudy as if she were more than a friend and my sister-in-law, you know that!"

"Maybe you didn't, but don't tell me you didn't know how she felt about you? You encouraged it. Isn't that worse? To have no feelings for someone, but encourage them to have feelings for you anyway?"

"I did my best to keep Trudy at a distance, Martin, but it's rather difficult when she's the mother of my niece!"

"You did nothing to keep her 'at a distance', Bray! You were round there every chance you got with presents for her and for Brady, picking up the groceries, playing games, playing father to _MY_ daughter!"

Bray had had enough. Martin was beginning to not make sense now. He had realised his brother would be a bit cut up about Trudy's disappearance and more than a little angry, Martin was angry about everything, but this was verging on the psychotic! There was no trace of the guilt he had portrayed when Trudy first threatened him with legal action and her departure, only obsessive, corrosive, dangerous anger. The kind that could get him killed, or make him kill someone else!


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"So," Jack asked Ebony as they sat in the snack room in the library, "Are you even considering going home yet?"

Ebony considered for a while and looked out of the window to the darkening sky outside. It was getting late. She and Jack had spent the rest of the day working on their various projects and studying. Ellie, presumably in a mood and waiting for Jack to go and find _her_, had never returned and, when Ebony had mentioned her, Jack had shrugged and remarked that it was better to letter her cool off for a while. For all that her dislike of Ellie had motivated Ebony's advance on Jack that afternoon, Jack himself was the reason she had stayed so long. He was a good study companion and always ready to help with any computer stuff; plus, as Ebony was beginning to find out, he had a witty, sarcastic sense of humour and she was actually enjoying herself. She had made more progress with her course work in that afternoon and evening than since the start of term!

"Nah," she sighed in reply, "Not really much point. I'll only pig out on junk food and spend half the night in front of the TV, then be late for lectures tomorrow morning!"

"Sounds familiar!" Jack laughed.

"Besides, I'm getting more work done here."

"You haven't put pen to paper for the last half-hour and you know it! Neither have I. It's nearly eight, why don't we go and get something half decent to eat?"

"Won't that get you in trouble with Ellie?" Ebony said the other girl's name teasingly and batted her eyelashes.

"Nah," Jack shook his head dismissively and rhymed off a list of reasons, ticking them off on his fingers as he spoke, "Point one: it's not like I'm leaving her out of anything as she's always telling me she can't get in and out of the city at this time of night anyway. Point two: why should Ellie stop me having a bite to eat with one of my friends when I've been a good boy and spent almost the whole day working, well, mostly working! Point three: I'm already in trouble and Ellie's imagination will put me in far more trouble than the facts will! Point four: I really couldn't care less!"

"Well, when you put it that way," Ebony laughed, getting to her feet and grabbing her stuff, "What girl could resist?"

xxxx

Luke dumped his bag down on the hotel bed. It was a shabby little place, but not too shabby. His father would approve... just! He hated having such a rich family. It wasn't like they had always been this way. They had been normal up to a couple of years ago, then his father had had a big win on a race he'd bet on, gambled the money again on the stock market and won! Now he seemed to think that, just because he hadn't had to work for his money, his son shouldn't either. At least the sizeable allowance he'd given Luke allowed the not-so-poor student to take some time off college, fly down to see his girlfriend after a day at college and stop in a half decent hotel in the city centre, not to mention eat out at a half decent restaurant. As Luke splashed some water over his face and selected the items he would need for the restaurant, he thought how surprised Ellie would be to see him and smiled.

xxxx

It had taken Ellie all afternoon to calm herself completely and get rid of most of the traces of her annoyance with Jack, but when Dal had turned up in his new car, a present from his parents, to take her to their dinner date in the city centre, the lack of her usual enthusiasm tipped him off. When he asked what was wrong, Ellie just shrugged and muttered something about course work. As they drove into the city, she was quieter than usual and Dal asked if she wanted to talk about it.

"It's nothing, honest," Ellie forced a smile, "Just some course work that's proving a bit more difficult than anticipated!"

"Are you sure?" Dal asked, glancing over at her quickly, "It might help if you talk the problem through. Get it straight in you mind. You know?"

"No, it's fine. I'll just mull it over. I don't want to distract you while you're driving."

"You distract me enough just being so beautiful!"

Ellie smiled, her feelings brightened a little by the compliment, then turned back to her musings about 'nothing'.

It wasn't nothing. It was very definitely something. It was just something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Ebony's arrival shouldn't have affected her this much: she'd just come over for some help with her work and Jack, being the sweet, helpful guy that he is, had decided to help her. She had only come over to get Jack's help. That was all. She had done exactly what Ellie had done when she first met Jack: picked out someone who could help her and made friends with them. Ellie had seen her being paired up with Jack in a tutorial. He was just a friendly face to Ebony. A useful, friendly face. No more. There wasn't even the slightest chance a girl like Ebony would have serious designs on stealing Jack's affections away from her. No chance at all. And Jack wasn't the kind of guy to two-time anyone anyway. So why was she so upset?

xxxx

Trudy walked up the stairs from the dining hall of the hotel, Brady in her arms and her new bodyguard trailing along behind. Being new to the job, Lex still lacked some of the icy reserve of the other bodyguards. He was quite handsome too, Trudy mused. He was no Kevin Costner, that was true, but then she was no Whitney Houston. Still, she could dream. She smiled to herself and almost walked into the young man turning the corner ahead of her, heading out of the hotel. He was about her age, maybe a year or two older, but better dressed. He looked as though he was going out for the evening. She smiled and apologised. The young man smiled back, his ocean-blue eyes flashing at her good-humouredly as he side-stepped and made his way passed Trudy and her entourage.

When she got back to her room, Trudy was off on another daydream. Lex had to call her back as she even walked straight past her own door! She didn't match his smile as he ushered her into the room, after checking it himself. Nor did she meet his dark eyes with hers as he said goodnight and stepped outside to brief the night guard. This daydream hadn't been about Lex and his deep, dark eyes. This one was about a well-dressed young man, with eyes the colour of the deepest sea.

xxxx

Luke walked quickly through the city streets. It wasn't a particularly cold night, but there was a cool breeze and in this city the weather could change so quickly you could easily see four seasons in one day! He was smiling a little at the memory of the young mother who had almost collided with him in the hotel corridor. The forbidding presence of the silent young man behind her had puzzled him. Who was he? Friend? Lover? Certainly not the child's father: she had bright blonde hair and ice-blue eyes, neither of which could have been passed down from that particular young man. As the restaurant approached, he shrugged off the conundrum, determined to enjoy a good meal. He had a friend who worked here and, if he ate at the bar, he might get a chance to catch up with her occasionally.

As he walked in, heading straight for the bar and ignoring the semi-partitioned area reserved for the dining tables, he spotted her. It wasn't difficult. With scarlet hair and an off-the-shoulder, matching top, Salene was easy to spot anywhere! He caught her eye as he sat down and she hurried over.

"Hey! How are? I haven't seen you in ages!" Salene bubbled, cheerfully.

"I'm fine," Luke replied, giving his friend a quick hug over the top of the bar, "I just came down to see Ellie. I told you she lived near here?"

"Oh, yeah, I think you mentioned it," Salene replied, sarcastically, "You know, just one or two... or maybe _three _dozen times! So, is she meeting you here?"

"No, I just arrived. I'll head over there tomorrow. Surprise her."

"You'll have to bring her here, this time, so that I can meet her. I can't believe how few people have actually met this girl you claim to have given your heart to!"

"Hey, there's no '_claim_' about it! I've fallen for her hook, line and sinker! She's perfect!"

xxxx

Dal and Ellie sat at a table in a quiet corner of the restaurant. The noise of the bar was dimmed a little by the wooden panel, carved with an ornate design of inter-weaving grasses, across the middle of the divide between the two rooms, leaving a gap at either end for customers and waiters to pass through. Through the gap at one end, Ellie could see the end of the bar. The red-haired barmaid had hurried off and, although she could see the bright colour of her hair and top penetrate through the partition screen, she couldn't see who she was talking to. Who ever it was, it was someone the barmaid must have known well because she'd ran off with a grin splitting her face from ear to ear and had hugged the anonymous form at the other end of the bar. Ellie turned her attention back to Dal, who was quite happily describing, in minute detail, exactly what improvements she should convince Alice to make to the farm. Honestly, thought Ellie, why _does_ he think I left!

"Ellie?!" Jack's voice cut into Ellie's boredom like a knife into a boil.

Ellie sat up straight and looked around, wildly. They had just walked in: Jack and Ebony. Jack was now advancing upon Ellie's table with a look of dismay and confusion and even a possible attempt at anger! Dal had now also noticed the intrusion and had got to his feet.

"Who are you?" Jack and Dal snapped at each other at the exactly the same moment.

"I'm her boyfriend," they each replied, "Who are you?"

Ellie sat staring quietly forward, focussing intently upon the table's centrepiece, as the two boys worked out the truth and turned to her. Feeling their gaze upon her, she looked up and gave a half-hearted laugh.

"We never said we were exclusive!" Ellie simpered, cringing.

Dal and Jack looked at each other, then turned back to Ellie.

"Some things don't usually need saying!" Jack replied.

"No?" Ellie raised her eyebrows and indicated Ebony, who was leaning against the wall and trying to keep out of the fight.

"No. I don't need your permission to have dinner with a friend; and whether you believe me or not, that's all we are!"

"If you don't, why do I?"

"I didn't lie to you about being able to get into city centre in the evenings. You said you had no way in here. You said you had to help your sister with the farm. Now I find out that all the while you've been spending the days with me and the evenings with this guy?" Jack's voice rose to a crescendo.

"You can't deny it, Ellie," Dal cut in, "We're both standing right here in front of you claiming to be your boyfriend."

Ellie looked down, confused, and said nothing.

"I-I can't believe this!" Jack cried, throwing up his hands and storming out of the dining area, followed closely by Ebony.

Ellie bit her lip and looked at her hands, then got up and ran after him. Dal sighed and followed.

"Jack!" Ellie cried, calling the young computer expert to a halt in the middle of the bar, "Don't go!"

"Why not?" Jack spun round as the blonde raced up to him and Ebony moved, tactfully, off to one side: this show was far to enjoyable to interrupt.

"Because!" Ellie blurted out the word as though it in itself should be an explanation.

"Be-because what, Ellie? Wh-why should I stay? Wh-why shouldn't I just go a-and forget I ever knew you?"

"_Because_!" Ellie stressed the word, "Because I don't want you to go!"

"And we always have to do everything _you_ want!"

"Jack, please," Ellie whined, "I'm sorry, I love you, I made a mistake!"

"You made a _mistake_!" Jack cried, aware of the pained look on Dal's face behind Ellie, "What? Did you forget you already had one boyfriend?"

"Obviously!"

The voice that had cut in was not Ellie's or Dal's or even Ebony's. It was a new voice; new to Jack, at least. It was clear that Ellie recognised it perfectly: she fainted.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Come on, Ellie, you can't stay in there all day!" Alice called through the door to her sister's room.

"GO AWAY!" Ellie screamed back, something hitting the door with a thump.

"No!" Alice retorted, "Listen, madam, you played those three guys off against each other and you got exactly what you deserved for it, so don't play the broken hearted innocent with me!"

"But he will NEVER. SPEAK. TO ME. AGAIN!" Ellie raged.

"Oh, really," Alice said, choosing her words carefully, "and which of the _three_ he's would you be referring to?"

"Oh, get _lost_, Alice!"

"It's just, you know, I can narrow it down to two out of the three on my own, but only because Dal's the only one you didn't say 'I love you' to, so which is it? Jack or Luke?"

"Leave me alone!"

Okay, okay," Alice backed off a little, "I'll just go and have my lunch... You just sit in there, feeling sorry for yourself. No problem. I'm sure the pigs wouldn't mind having your sandwiches, they like cheese and pickle I think."

xxxx

Trudy sat in the lounge of the hotel, Brady happily playing with her building blocks on the floor in front of her. It was one of her few days off since she had got her new job and it was nice to have some slight form of normality in her life, even if Lex was hovering over her shoulder, keeping a watchful eye on the two of them. The court case would be heard soon, then she might be able to get even more normality back into her life, hopefully with Martin behind bars!

As Trudy mused, she caught sight of another figure wander into the lounge and order coffee from the bar. He had come from the reception area of the hotel, not the elaborate staircase leading up to the rooms and his appearance suggested that he had been out all night. No longer the tidy, well dressed young man of the night before, he was unshaven, his hair was a mess and he appeared to be wearing the same clothes as he had when she had passed on the staircase the previous evening.

Brady giggled loudly as her tower of bricks toppled over and Luke looked round. He gave a tired, lop-sided smile and then noticed Trudy watching him and looked away.

"Do you want to sit down?" Trudy asked, indicating the seat next to her.

Luke turned back to her, considered for a moment, then nodded.

"That's very kind of you, thank you," he said, placing his coffee on the side table by his chair as he sat down.

"Rough night?" Trudy smiled.

"Yeah, a bit!" Luke gave a half-hearted laugh, "Mostly my own fault though. I got some bad news and reacted to it... Well, badly, to say the least!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Anything you want to talk about?"

"No. Well. I don't know."

"They say it's easier to talk to strangers."

"Yeah, they do, don't they!"

"Well?"

"I, um, I passed you on the stairs last night, didn't I?"

"Yes, that was me.

"Well, I was on my way out for dinner at the time. Just off to a little place I know well: a friend of mine works there. Saying that, I don't know if she'd call me a friend now!" Luke raised his eyebrows and stared into his coffee cup and Trudy waited for him to continue, "I thought I'd just go out, have a nice meal and a chat with an old friend and then today I would be driving out to the countryside to see my girlfriend. What I didn't know was that while I was sitting through at the bar section of the restaurant, chatting and eating, my girlfriend was through in the main dining section with another guy she'd been seeing since she came back down here! The only reason I did find out was because another guy she'd been seeing also turned up with another girl who he _says_ is only a friend and caught the other two at dinner. _They_ had a blazing row. _He_ stormed out. _She_ followed him. _Caught_ up with him in the bar. _Yelled_ out she loved him, then _fainted_ when she saw _me_! I feel sorry for the first guy: he looked mortified when she ran after the other chap and when she fainted, he just left. The girl with the other guy kept well out of it, so I don't think she could have been more than a friend, or at least if she was she's got more sense than some! The other guy, he went over and helped Ellie, my girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, whatever, up and bundled her out into a cab. I don't know what they said to each other, but it was a while before he came back in. When he did, he came straight over to me and apologised. Said he knew nothing about me before, but that Ellie had just explained, or tried to as he was hailing her cab. He'd told her to go home and not to go anywhere near him again. He didn't know if I wanted to speak to her, but thought I'd want to sleep on it first anyway, then he and the other girl left!"

"So how is any of that your fault? You couldn't have known she was cheating if you were away!"

"It's not that, it's how I reacted to it! I was sitting at the bar. I got blind drunk and sat there pouring my heart out to Salene, my old friend who works there! She, I think, had always had a bit of a crush on me, at least according to my folks and some of my friends, and when she finished we both went on to a club somewhere. I don't know how I got in there in the state I was in but whatever club it was, they let me in and we both continued to drink ourselves silly. Next thing I know... I wake up not only in Sal's apartment, but in her bed! With her lying next to me too! I don't know what I was thinking, I think I was still drunk, but I got myself up and dressed and bolted out of there as fast as I could without waking her. I've been walking around ever since, just thinking. I didn't even leave a note or anything! She's gonna hate me!"

"You were drunk, both of you. If she's as good a friend as you say she is, she'll surely understand. She might be a bit hurt and upset, but she'll forgive you, surely?"

"I don't know. I don't think she'll ever speak to me again!

xxxx

"Jack?"

Ebony propped herself up on her elbows and looked around the room. The bright light from the windows made her screw up her eyes and groan. She had drunk too much last night. They both had. She rolled out of the bed and pulled on her shirt and jeans. It was a small apartment: just a kitchen, bathroom and closet all opening off the one room that served as both living, studying and sleeping quarters: one bed, a chest of drawers, a desk and chair, a computer, a bookcase and small table and a couple of other chairs. Knuckling sleep out of her eyes, Ebony headed over to the kitchen.

"Hey," Jack mumbled from a stool by the kitchen worktop as she walked in, "there's coffee in the pot, cereal in the cupboard. No milk though. Just don't clatter anything!"

"You okay?"

"That depends! The hangover I think I can cope with; what happened last night is another matter!"

"Don't beat yourself up about it!"

"But I do! It's just one of those situations I never, ever thought I would find myself in! I never thought I was that kind of guy!"

"You were as much taken in by her as the other two," Ebony sat down on the stool next to him clutching her cup of coffee, "You all thought you were the only one she was seeing. It's not your fault it wasn't true!"

"But I should have seen it!" Jack banged both his fist on the worktop and then winced, "Heck, I-I'm supposed to be a genius and I never once questioned why my 'girlfriend' could only ever see me during the daytime, n-never wanted me to come over to her home, n-never gave me any phone number except her mobile a-and _that_ was always switched off at night time! How do you not put these things together? She had two clear and separate lives in this city, a-and another one elsewhere too, how did I _not_ notice that!"

"Because she lied to you," Ebony replied vehemently, "Because you loved her, I guess. Because you are an honest, wonderful guy who always sees the best in people."

Jack groaned

"Don't, you make me sound like a saint. I'm sure saints don't wake up at two in the afternoon with hangovers!"

"Not a saint," Ebony rubbed his shoulder and Jack sunk his aching head onto the worktop, "just a very great guy."

"Yeah, whatever. Did you sleep alright?"

"Course I did: I wasn't the one who slept on the floor!"


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Jack didn't see Ellie in class that day or the next. The third day, he thought he caught a glimpse of her in the library, but Ebony called his attention away and when he looked back, she was gone. He had seen a lot of Ebony recently. They had become friends, good friends. They studied together in class and in the library and often ate together in the evening as well as during the day. He had stayed over at her flat the previous night and she had persuaded him not to sleep on the floor - she had a double bed, big enough for both of them, so why not make use of the fact. It had been a bit of a shock when he woke up that morning to find his arm around her and her head on his chest, but it hadn't changed anything: they were still just friends.

Now it was late afternoon and he was in the library, with Ebony across the table, leaning over her politics books. They had a late class coming up, then they'd decided to head out for something to eat then go back to Ebony's and work on some programming homework. Jack looked at his watch. It was time to go.

"We should be heading," he told Ebony.

"Huh?" Ebony looked up from her books, confused.

"Er.. Class? Y'know: that thing where they teach you stuff and give you lots of nasty homework!"

"Oh yeah," Ebony marked her page and closed her book and notepad, "I forgot. We'd better get going or we're going to hit the rush, especially now with the nursery coming out! I hate being caught in a sea of toddlers!"

"Aw, you know you love it really!" Jack teased as they made their way to the empty stairwell, "I've seen the way you look at 'em: you can't wait to have one of your own!"

"Yeah, right!" Ebony pulled a face, "Besides, I'd only even consider it if the perfect man came along and I keep hearing _he_ doesn't exist!"

"Huh, we're not all bad, y'know!"

"Sure, course not!"

"Alright then," Jack laughed, stopping on the step in front of Ebony and turning to look at her, their faces exactly on the same level, "you describe your perfect man, and I'll do my best to find him for you!"

Ebony stopped, unable to proceed any further and looked up to face Jack. As her grey eyes met his dark ones, for a moment her mind flashed to him pulling her into his arms and kissing her, but she shook her head and the flash was gone. She laughed and walked around him without saying anything. Jack paused for a moment, his brow creasing in puzzlement, then shrugged and turned to catch up with his friend.

xxxx

Trudy walked through the foyer of the library, trailed as usual by Lex and accompanied, rather unusually, by Cloe, the young maid from the hotel. It was the young girl's day off and, as she and the single mother had become friends during Trudy's stay at the hotel, she had opted for a day out with her: just the two of them, and Lex in the background! As they walked through the foyer, students hurried to a late class around them. One swerved to miss another student and crashed into Cloe, sending her to floor with him landing on top of her. He scrambled to his feet, muttering apologies and offering his hand to help her up. He had grey eyes and dyed blonde hair and was trying to look apologetic, but seemed more amused than anything else.

"I'm Cloe," Cloe said, smiling, as he pulled her to her feet, "Hi."

"Ved. Nickname. Don't ask. Hi. Got class. Gotta run. Bye," the young man muttered, dashing off three paces before turning and hurrying back to where Cloe still stood, trying not to laugh, "Um, can I have you're phone number?"

A grin spread across Cloe's face as she grabbed a pen from her bag and scribbled her name and number on Ved's hand. She watched as a grin spread across his own face and then, with a muttered "I'll call you," he dashed off!

"Come on squirt!" Lex called, "No time for teenage romances!"

"Lex!" Trudy hit Lex, playfully, on the chest as Cloe ran up to them.

The bodyguard rolled his eyes and sighed as the younger girl started gushing.

"Sorry, he was just sooo cute! And he has these gorgeous eyes! And a really cute grin! And..."

Lex winced as Cloe carried on extolling the virtues of the guy she had literally just bumped into while they crossed the remainder of the foyer and extracted Brady from the crèche. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to block out the girly chatter, but frowned as images of Zandra flashed through his brain.

xxxx

"Ugh, I hate this!" Amber moaned, fighting her way through the packed corridor after her herbalism class.

"I know, these corridors are far too narrow!" Jewel replied, her voice serious.

"That's not what I mean and you know it!" Amber laughed, catching her friend's arm so as not to lose her in the crush.

"I don't know why you feel you don't like the class: you're doing so well!"

"It doesn't feel like it!" Amber sighed, "I feel like I'm just drowning in information! It's swamping me! So much of this herb for that and so much of that herb for this, and then a different amount of it cures this and if you mix it with that you can alleviate such and such but if you mix it with this it can _kill_ you! Not like a little mix up in _there_ is gonna hurt too much!"

"Indeed, many herbal poisons are utterly painless!"

"Very funny, you know what I mean!"

"Hmmm, I do. Where are we going?"

"I need food. Preferably chocolate!"

"You always need chocolate!"

"I'm a chocoholic, it's my thing!"

"I really should try and save you from yourself, you know."

"But you love me too much to see me suffer."

"I guess I do. Or it could just be that I'm a chocoholic too!"

"Ah, then we can doom ourselves to bad skin and fatness together then!"

"Nothing a good hour or so in the gym won't fix!"

"You're such a slave driver!"

"It's for your own good!"

"I know."

xxxx

For once, Ryan had managed to get home early. Zandra was getting near her due date now and was always at home, so he tried to spend as much time with her as possible. It hadn't been easy recently, with Lex joining the company, but the worst of the paperwork was done now and he could relax a bit. He closed the door behind him and hung up his coat.

"Honey, I'm home!"

"Ryan?"

Zandra's voice held a note of panic. Ryan hurried up the stairs and hunted through the rooms, looking for his wife. He found her in the baby's room. She was half sitting, half lying on the floor, a pile of baby blankets scattered around her from where she had fallen and a clear liquid staining the carpet.

"Call an ambulance!" Zandra cried, grabbing her husband's outstretched hand, "The baby's coming!"


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Trudy looked around her in the store. She needed to get a new suit for the court hearing, but everything was so expensive nowadays. The tall form of her stand-in bodyguard hovered behind her. His name was Andrew and he was merely filling in for Lex for the day. Apparently Lex was at the hospital with his best friend, visiting his friend's wife and new baby. Lex was to be the child's godfather, a task he would not normally take up for some weeks. There had been some complications with the birth, however, and the parents wanted their child baptised straight away so both of the godparents had been called to the hospital for an impromptu service.

"What do you think of this, Andrew?" Trudy said, turning to her bodyguard and holding up a neat, pinstripe pencil-skirt and blazer.

Andrew pulled a face and Trudy hastily put the ensemble back on the rail.

"I wish you wouldn't use my given name, Trudy," the tall man said, gently, "Nobody else does."

"I know, but Pride is such an odd name to get used to," the young mother shrugged, "even as a nickname! Where did you get it?"

"A joke of my father's," Pride replied, "I am an only child; my mother died when I was very young. I have always been fascinated with nature and, when my father and I were watching a programme about lions, I believe I asked him what the lion's family was called. He told me that their family group, however large or small, was called a pride and that, even though there were just the two of us, I was his pride. The name came from there. It just kind of stuck."

As Pride looked away self consciously, Trudy realised she had been watching him a little too closely. She coughed and turned back to the rails.

xxxx

"How's he doing mate?" Lex asked as Ryan came over to where he and Zandra's friend, Tai San, sat.

"He's holding on," Ryan replied, sitting down heavily on the chair opposite the two godparents, "it's his mother we're worried about now."

"Why?" Tai San asked, "What is wrong?"

"I-I don't understand!" Ryan said, holding his head in his hands, "They're saying some miscarriage Zan had years ago caused the problems. They're saying she might not be able to have any more kids. That _we_ might not be able to have any more kids."

"Sometimes, this is the hand life deals us," Tai San replied, leaning forward to put a comforting hand on Ryan's knee, "there is nothing we can do to change things or prevent them happening, they just do."

"B-but, that's just it: I didn't do anything!" Ryan exclaimed, "Zan and I, this is our first baby. She's never been pregnant before."

"Sometimes miscarriages can occur before pregnancy is noticed," Tai San continued.

"But that's the other thing: they said that, from the amount of scarring, it had happened three years ago! Zan and I weren't married then, just engaged. Everything... happened... the right way round: I'm not that kind of guy, I want to be married _first_, d'you see?"

Tai San looked puzzled and shook her head.

"They're saying Zan was pregnant back when she couldn't have been, because she was with _me_ and _we_ weren't sleeping together then! Not until after the wedding!"

Lex stayed silent, watching his feet as he listened to Tai San go over everything with Ryan over and over again: what had happened, what may or may not have happened, what might happen later. As much as he wanted to be able to comfort Ryan, he knew that if he made even the slightest slip, he would cause his friend even more pain than he was already going through.

xxxx

"So," Cloe shrugged, as she and Ved walked through one of the campus gardens, "what do you do for fun around here?"

"Mainly, try to avoid my brother!" Ved quipped.

"Ah, so you have a brother! I found out something else about you! Does he study here?"

"Yeah," Ved rolled his eyes and laughed, "he's one of the top students on his course."

"What does he study?"

"Same as me, with a few extras, but a couple of years ahead. Him and his best mate are working on some weird project thing just now, as well as tutoring the first year labs. Thankfully I got landed with his mate, not him!"

"Sounds intriguing... So what? Are they plotting to take over the world or something?"

"No. Well, not as far as I know! They're working on some virtual reality stuff with another guy from their class. They've gathered a bunch of volunteers from the different societies they're in to be guinea pigs for them."

"Guinea pigs for what, exactly?"

"Well the VR thing for one. I mean, Jay says it's the closest to reality anyone's ever got before. He says they're working on actually being able to feel things when you're in VR."

"What, like pain?"

"Well, I guess so, but other things too."

"But wouldn't that be dangerous? I mean, if you can feel pain from the virtual world, could it actually hurt you?"

"No, it's just tricking the brain. It's all an illusion."

"So what do you do? I mean, do you help them or anything?"

"No, it's their project; although Ram, Jay's best mate, has got us to sort out some stuff in class. He keeps setting us tasks for the lab that are actually bits of programming for his project that he doesn't have time to work on himself."

"Is that allowed?"

"I dunno. The tutors' jobs are to give us tasks to practice our programming with. I guess that includes the stuff Ram gives us."

"It sounds a bit odd to me. But then I guess that's why I'm changing linen in hotel bedrooms all day instead of going to college!"

"Yeah, I don't know about that. You don't strike me as the dropout kinda chick. Why didn't you go to college?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Cloe shrugged off the question, "just some personal stuff. College wasn't really an option for me."

xxxx

"Ellie, get up off of your backside and go to college!" Alice yelled through the bedroom door, "It's lunchtime already!"

"Hardly worth the trip then, is it!" Ellie called back.

"Either you go to college or I pick you up and dump you in the pigsty. It needs cleaning out, you know!"

"You wouldn't."

"I did last time!"

Ellie sighed and frowned, remembering the experience.

"Fine," she shouted, "I'm going!"

"About time!"

xxxx

"Hey, you want some food?" Ebony trailed a hand on Jack's shoulder as she walked past him to the library snack room.

"Huh?" Jack looked up from his laptop and over at Ebony before flicking his gaze between her and his work, "Um... Yeah. Something. Anything."

"Well, what?" Ebony shrugged.

"I dunno. Whatever," Jack frowned at the computer screen and turned back round to it, calling back: "Surprise me!"

"Men!" Ebony muttered, rolling her eyes and turning to head for the room.

As she walked to the door of the snack room, Ebony turned to glance back at Jack, sitting frowning at his computer screen and chewing his lip, like he always did when something wasn't doing what it was supposed to. Ebony smiled and laughed to herself then turned back towards the snack room and promptly walked into someone.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry!" Ram crooned as Ebony tried to apologise, "It was totally my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going."

"Oh, that's okay," Ebony replied, puzzled enough not to swear, especially at her computer lab tutor, "I wasn't really watching where I was going myself."

"No, no. I take full responsibility. You must let me take you out to dinner some time to apologise properly."

"Isn't there some rule against that?"

"I believe that only applies to the paid staff, not merely the older students acting as tutors."

"Right," Ebony replied, her eyebrows rising, "Well, I'd love to, but..."

"Then I'll pick you up at seven?" Ram cut in.

"No! No, I can't!" Ebony said hurriedly, backing away as she spoke, "I... um... I have plans."

"On your own?" Ram took another step forward.

"No," Ebony replied, backing further away, "With someone. I-I mean with my someone... I mean with my boyfriend. I-I should go. Sorry. Bye."

Ram watched as Ebony turned and hurried back to Jack's side.

"So you have a boyfriend," Ram thought to himself, "Well, that can be dealt with."


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Trudy stood in front of the full length mirror in her hotel room. This was it. Today was the day. Today, she would finally get her freedom back: Martin would go to prison; divorce proceedings could get underway; Brady could start going to a normal nursery, without being followed everywhere by a bodyguard.

There was a knock at the door. Trudy turned to look over at Cloe, who was playing with Brady.

"That'll be Lex," she said, nervously, "How do I look?"

"You look great," Cloe smiled, "you're gonna knock 'em dead!"

Trudy pulled a face at the latter comment and Cloe was quick to pick up her meaning.

"Figuratively speaking, of course," the younger girl added.

Trudy laughed a little and turned to the door.

"Well," she said, to the room in general, "Here we go!"

She strode over to the door and flung it open. Immediately her happy, smiling face turned to a mask of horror.

"Martin!"

xxxx

Jack woke up and blinked in the bright daylight. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand then stopped and frowned: there was no weight on his other arm. Looking over at the other side of the bed, he saw that it was empty; Ebony wasn't there. He frowned again, then looked around, sitting up as he did so. He froze, realising for the first time that he had woken up expecting Ebony to be there, lying next to him; that he was getting used to her being there. Shaking his head, he got up and pulled on a dressing gown, his dressing gown, and wandered over to the bathroom. He looked down at the array of toiletries: half his, half Ebony's. Again, he froze. Jack tried to think back to the last time he'd actually spent a night in his own flat, not just stopped by to pick up some stuff, most of which had now found its own little space in Ebony's flat. As far as he could remember, that was the night he and Ellie had broken up. He hadn't spent a night there since. He hadn't spent a night without Ebony since. Jack's eyebrows moved an inch up his forehead as he watched his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

"Am I..." He began, frowning at his reflection as if it held all the answers to the questions rolling through his mind, "Am I slowly moving in here?"

Half an hour, one shower and too many unanswered questions later, Jack wandered into the small, oblong kitchen. At the far end, Ebony sat nursing a mug of coffee and staring out of the window.

"Hey," Jack muttered, pouring himself a mug of coffee.

"Hey," Ebony replied, automatically.

"Something wrong?"

"Huh?"

"You were awake before me."

"Couldn't sleep."

"Oh."

Jack sat down on the other kitchen stool and sipped his coffee.

"Anything you want to talk about, Ebs?"

"No," Ebony shook her head, but continued to stare dazedly out of the window.

Jack's brow wrinkled in concern. This wasn't like her. He wanted to gather her up in his arms and tell her it was okay, whatever it was, and that she could talk to him, that he was there. He wanted to put his arms around her and shelter her, protect her. He reached out a hand to brush away a stray braid that had fallen across her flawless cheek, then froze. What was he doing? What was he thinking? He shook his head and turned back to his coffee.

"What time is it?" Ebony asked, eventually.

"Almost nine," Jack replied, squinting at his watch.

"You should go: you've got a lecture."

"So have you."

"I'm not going."

"Why not?"

Ebony paused, briefly, and continued to stare out of the window before looking down into her mug.

"Headache," she muttered.

"Right," Jack murmured, finishing his coffee and getting to his feet.

Again, Jack's hand stretched out towards Ebony. Again he froze. Again, his hand dropped to his side and in silence, he left the room. A few minutes later, as the nearby clock tower of the college struck nine o'clock, Ebony heard the door of her apartment close, then watched Jack cross the road and small section of park to the nearest of the buildings, where his lectures were held. Later there was a computing lab that they shared, then some more lectures. Ebony looked down at her mug of now cold coffee and contemplated going back to bed. Perhaps, if she had looked up, she would have seen the blonde-haired figure following Jack into the nearby building.

xxxx

Amber woke up with a stiff neck. Now she remembered why she always hated sleeping on sofas. She checked her mobile. There was a message from Dal, saying that he had got her message and would see her that evening, if and when she finally got back to their flat, and one from her parents, reminding her of her sister's birthday next week. Amber rolled her eyes and sat up.

"What time is it?"

"Just after nine," came the reply from another room.

Amber got up and walked round into the open plan kitchen/dining area. Jewel was sitting at the table, eating cereal and drinking coffee. The small television in the corner was tuned to the morning news.

"So far, scientists have no idea what is causing the recent spate of hallucinations," the news reader read, "They say that, as there is no visible pattern to the attacks, and as there are few links between any of the victims, it may take them some time to isolate the cause of this strange occurrence. Some religious groups are claiming that the victims are being possessed by demons and rumours of an imminent apocalypse abound. The only thing known for certain is that these hallucinations are not caused by any of the known legal or illegal drugs. It appears that most of the victims are students at the city's polytechnical college; however, scientists warn that this may be misleading as a large section of the city's youth attend this college and we have no information regarding the source of the attacks. We would advise everyone, regardless of age or status, to monitor their food and drink intake and to boil any tap water before drinking."

"What's that all about?" Amber asked her friend.

"Loads of people have been suddenly going crazy," Jewel replied, "It's odd, there are variations in the 'hallucinations' as they're called, but there seem to be a set number of 'types' of hallucination. Some, most of them, it seems, seem to think that they are taking part in some game where everyone is an enemy and it is kill or be killed. Others believe they are deep underwater or high in the sky, not that they feel in danger at all: they all seem fairly happy with what's going on. There are even some who seem to think that they are stuck in some diseased, post-apocalyptic world, where only they children have survived and now it's everyone for themselves: no order, only chaos; no families, only 'tribes' - gangs of kids banding together to fight each other for food, shelter, power, even water. That's where the religious groups come in: they say that those ones are seeing the future if we don't mend our ways and the reason only children survived is because they are innocent. It's weird. Imagine living in a world like that!"

"I don't think I'd survive it!" Amber cried, sitting down, "And they have no idea what's causing it?"

"None. Lots of theories: demonic possession; radiation; some new hallucinogenic drug on the market; a virus in the water supply."

"Weird!"

"So, are you ready for the test?"

"I'll never be ready for the test! Why bother, I'm going to fail anyway!"

"Oh, I'm certain of it!" Jewel remarked calmly.

"Gee, thanks!" Amber looked up at her friend in surprise.

"Well, Amber, I have no doubt that you can do anything you put your mind to; therefore, if you put your mind to failing, I've no doubt you'll manage _that_!"

xxxx

Lex woke up with a pounding headache. He pushed himself up off the floor and looked around, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Someone, or something, had hit him and knocked him out. That much was certain. He looked round to Trudy's door. It was shut. He tried it. It was locked.

"Trudy!" Lex yelled, "Trudy, are you in there!"

"Le..." Trudy began, her voice disappearing into a shriek.

Lex heard a thud and then heard Brady start crying. He stepped back from the door and took a run at it. The first blow seemed to do nothing but bruise his shoulder. He stepped further back and tried again. This time the door flew open and Lex thundered into the room. Immediately in front of him he saw Martin. Cowering in one corner were Cloe and Brady, the maid's arms wrapped around the crying child. Slumped against the wall was an unconscious Trudy, blood seeping from a burst lip and one eye swelling already. Her right arm also looked broken.

Before Lex had time to utter one word of comfort to the younger girls, Martin flew at him. The two men grappled, locked in equal combat, until Martin pulled back a fist and aimed it for Lex's face. The shorter man ducked and turned, his raven hair flying out behind him as he spun around and hit Martin full in the chest with a powerful kick. The blonde tyrant staggered backwards and, as Lex caught up with him, they began exchanging blows and blocks. What Lex lacked in height, he made up for in skill and gradually he forced Martin backwards onto the long balcony. Backed into a corner, Trudy's husband began to grow desperate and became almost wild with anger. Again, he threw a punch at Lex and again the bodyguard retaliated with a kick. This time, however, he was too close to the edge and, as the railing of the balcony snapped behind him, Lex saw Martin's hands flail and grasp vainly at the air, before disappearing down into the abyss of the hotel gardens. Moments later there was a scream and a sickening thud. The briefest glance over the edge told Lex that Martin... was dead.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Trudy woke up in hospital. Her first thought wasn't "Where am I?", she had woken up in hospitals enough times to know exactly where she was; it was "Brady!". She tried to sit up, but found herself restrained. She blinked a few times, trying to get her eyes back into focus, then saw a nurse's face swim into her view.

"Doctor, she's coming round," the nurse said, calmly.

The white-coated figure of a woman also moved into Trudy's field of view.

"Mrs Fielding? Can you hear me? My name is Doctor Carroll."

"I can hear you, Doctor," Trudy croaked, "Where's my daughter?"

"She's safe. Your solicitor and a female police officer are with her now."

"C-Cloe?"

"Giving a statement last I heard. She's an important witness."

"Lex?"

"Being treated for his injuries - minor ones thankfully, but he refused to have them seen to until we could assure him you were out of danger - or possibly giving his statement to the police if that's done."

Trudy gulped. Last of all came the name she dreaded most: the name that had filled her heart with dread every time she heard it.

"M-Martin?"

The doctor's face changed.

"He-he's not still out there, is he?" Trudy cried, beginning to panic, "The police have him, don't they?"

"Oh, they have him, Mrs Fielding," the doctor replied, "and he won't be terrorising you or your daughter again. I'm afraid he's dead, you see."

"D-Dead?" Trudy almost laughed but it was too painful, "Really? It-it's over?"

"Barring the fatal accident inquiry, yes, it's over."

"A-And me... What's wrong with me?"

"You hit the wall with some force, Mrs Fielding. We're worried you may have done some damage to your neck and/or spine. We're just waiting on the x-ray suite becoming available, then we'll have you up there to take a look. Until we know there is no damage, you'll have to remain restrained though."

"I understand," Trudy smiled, there was nothing the doctor could say to make her feel anything other than peace and relief.

xxxx

There was a knock on the door. Ebony moved across the room slowly. It wasn't as if it would be anything urgent, probably just Jack having forgotten his keys or the old guy downstairs complaining about the noise again, not that there ever was any noise of course! She reached the door and pulled it open, gasping at the face she saw before her.

"Why, Ebony," Ram said, smoothly, "How nice to see you looking so well. Jack told me you weren't feeling at your best."

"I-I'm fine, just a headache. No need to check on me, honest!"

Ebony tried to shut the door, but Ram's foot blocked it.

"Really," Ebony said, trying not to let her voice shake, "I'm fine. I just need some peace and quiet."

"Oh, but Ebony," Ram's voice oozed, "headaches can be dangerous things. You should have someone watching over you at all times!"

"I'll be fine. Jack will be home soon."

"Oh, I don't think so."

An icy dread clutched at Ebony's heart.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's just that I saw him not long ago. He was talking to a blonde girl. His ex, I believe. I heard them saying they should go back to his place. It didn't look like they were trying to decide who gets the cat!"

"Ellie still has a lot of explaining to do. They would be going there to talk. That's all."

"If you say so. It just didn't look that way to me."

"Well, if that's all, I think you should go now," Ebony said, gathering all her strength.

"Headache feeling better?" Ram asked lightly.

"I guess so," Ebony replied, kicking Ram's foot out of the way of the door and slamming it in his face.

With the door finally closed, Ebony slipped the chain on and slid down to sit on the floor, her back to the wall by the door. Part of her wanted to cry from the fear that Jack and Ellie might be getting back together, the rest of her scolded at the thought that she should have any hold over her friend's heart. They were friends, that was all. He owed her nothing. He could do as he liked.

xxxx

"E-Ellie, what was the point of this?" Jack cried, throwing up his hands and turning to face his tearful ex-girlfriend, "You said you wanted to talk: to explain what happened. Now all of a sudden _I'm_ the bad guy?"

"I thought you loved me!" Ellie wailed.

"Well, funnily enough, I remember thinking you loved me, until I found out there were another two guys who thought the same!"

"I hadn't met you when I met them! I didn't know what to do! I couldn't dump Luke when he was so far away and I just never got round to it with Dal!"

"As poor an excuse that is, I'm still confused as to why you didn't tell me about them! Not to mention why that makes me the bad guy!"

"I didn't tell you because I was scared. I didn't want to lose you!"

"And now _you_ are angry with _me_! Why exactly?"

"Because you say you loved me, but I really couldn't have meant that much to you could I? When I said I loved you, I meant it. You didn't!"

"How _exactly_ do you work that one out!"

"Well, look at you! Look around yourself, Jack! This is your apartment. How much of your stuff is still here? Do you think I didn't _notice_ you leaving Ebony's before class this morning? Do you think I've missed the fact that your music collection, your books, your clothes, everything that was here before, has been reduced to the mere minimum? How long did it take you to get over me and move on to her? Move in with her even!"

"Ebony and I are just friends!"

"Friends who sleep in the same bed? Or are you trying to tell me you slept on the floor all that time! I know all the apartments in that block are only one bedroom ones! They're just new - the ad is still up outside!"

"It hardly made sense for me to do that! It's a big enough bed for us to share! What? You think a guy and a girl can't share the same bed platonically?"

"Precisely!"

"They did it in Dawson's Creek!"

"That's a TV show! And it's _so_ lame!"

"Hey!"

"Hey, yourself! It is!"

With that, Ellie turned and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

"Bizarre!" Jack muttered, looking around to see if there was anything he wanted to take back to Ebony's with him this time.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Dal woke up to the smell of pancakes. He got out of bed and dressed, hurrying through his morning ablutions and rubbing his hand over his short, cropped hair.

"Anything left?" Dal called to Amber as he walked into the combined kitchen and dining room.

"There should be plenty," Amber replied, depositing a plate full of pancakes on the table.

"Uh, we're not eating all this ourselves, are we!" Dal exclaimed.

"No," his flatmate replied, "Jewel's here too. She's just taking a shower. I said she could use the one in my room so she didn't get in your way. She shouldn't be long."

Even as Amber spoke, the door to her room opened and closed and Jewel made her way through to the kitchen.

"Ohhh, pancakes, my favourite!" Jewel cried, sitting down at the table near Dal.

Amber placed another plate full of pancakes on the table and sat down opposite the others as they eagerly helped themselves the contents of the two plates.

"You know," Dal laughed, "I half expected you to have a guy through there! I haven't seen you make this much food since the morning after you went to that inter-schools ball with Bray Fielding in your final... Ow!"

Dal was cut off sharply by Amber's booted foot hitting his shin. He grumbled a little then carried on eating in silence. Amber glanced over at Jewel to find the other girl watching her with an amused smile. Jewel raised an eyebrow questioningly and Amber blushed and shrugged in reply. She had forgotten about Bray Fielding.

xxxx

Bray sat in the chair by Trudy's bedside. He had brought Brady in to see her mother; the child was now sitting in a corner with her toys, leaving her mother and uncle to talk. The test results had come back and, although she would have to spend considerable time in a wheelchair, the doctors could see no reason for Trudy not regaining the full use of her legs in time.

"How long will it be before you can come home?" Bray asked.

"They have to be sure I can cope from the wheelchair, so a while yet," Trudy replied, "It's not just me I have to look after, after all!"

"I'll help with Brady," Bray said, quickly, "In fact, I'd been thinking: perhaps I should move in for a while, once you're home. Just until you're walking again."

"Any excuse to see your niece?"

"Something like that."

"I'll think about it. It'll be a while yet."

"Do you need anything? It must get boring in here."

"Not really. There's a new trial the doctors want me to take part in: some virtual reality thing that they're working on at the tech college."

"Virtual reality? Is that safe?"

"They say so. It's all just tricks they play on your mind. I've spoken to one of the guys running it. His name's Jay. He's nice."

"Nice? Huh!" Bray looked bemused.

"Yes, nice! Don't look so shocked Bray: I'm allowed to think a guy's nice, you know! A guy other than you, that is!"

"Yeah! Right! I guess so!"

xxxx

"I don't see what Ellie could have said that made you suddenly decide to move out!" Ebony whispered hoarsely to Jack as they tried to work on the assignment they had been given at the beginning of the lab.

"Ebony, I never even noticed I'd moved in!" Jack hissed, his voice rising in pitch, rather than volume, as they talked.

"But everything was fine the way it was! We were getting along okay! I had someone to talk to in the mornings. It's all quiet now!"

"We were sharing the same bed!"

"So!"

"That's something couples do! We're not a couple!"

The bluntness of this statement made Ebony pause. She shook herself, mentally, and was about to continue her argument when she noticed Jack looking at her oddly.

"What?" Ebony hissed, looking at him angrily.

"Did you think we were a couple?"

"What?" Ebony thought fast, "No! Don't be stupid! We're just friends!"

She regretted the harshness of her words as soon as she heard herself say them. Trying not to look at Jack's face, she turned back to the project before them.

"Come on," she said, "We'd better get this done!"

xxxx

Ram watched Ebony from a distance as she bickered with Jack, then turned and stepped into the small office joined onto the side of the computer lab.

"She's going to be trouble," said a voice.

Ram jumped then turned to face the speaker.

"Sheesh, Mega, I wish you wouldn't do that!" Ram exclaimed, walking over to the other boy.

"You knew I was going to be here," Mega replied dismissively, "And like I said: she's going to be trouble. I think we should leave her be."

"No," Ram shook his head, vehemently, "I want her on this project. If we can get rid of _him_, she'll probably be easier to manage. Anyway, I thought you said you knew her sister?"

"I do. Well," Mega sighed, "I did. Java's an old flame."

"An old flame?" Ram laughed, "You amaze me Mega: I never thought you had 'flames'!"

"They can serve a purpose, occasionally."

"Maybe it's time this one served hers."

"I'll call her tonight."

xxxx

"I don't know why you still work here if you hate it so much!" Siva exclaimed as she walked her sister through the ever-busy hospital corridors.

"Because they pay me well!" Java replied, haughtily.

Siva laughed and shook her head at her sister, then turned back to look in front of her and promptly walked into a short, raven-haired young man carrying two plastic cups of coffee. As they collided, coffee spilled over the floor and across Java's shoes.

"Hey!" Java yelled at her sister and the young man.

"Oh, sorry! I'm so sorry!" Siva exclaimed, grabbing the stranger's shoulders to steady him.

Lex shook off the growl he had been about to produce and merely muttered that it was nothing, then hurried on his way.

"How rude can you get!" Java cried, still trying to shake coffee off her shoes.

"Cute though, wasn't he!" Siva replied, gazing after the handsome stranger, "and he really had some muscles in those arms!"

"Yeah, and he's heading for the maternity ward, sis, so give it up!"

Still gazing backwards over her shoulder, Siva allowed her sister to lead her out of the hospital towards their car.

xxxx

Lex reached Tai San with only half a cup of coffee in each plastic mug. They had been there ever since Ryan got a call from the hospital to say Zandra had encountered further complications.

"Sorry," he said, sitting down and passing one of the cups to Tai San, "there was a bit of an accident on the way! Has he come back yet?"

"No," Tai San replied, taking the cup and sipping from it delicately, "I do not think he will be back until he knows Zandra is out of danger. It may be a while. Perhaps we should go."

"I don't know. He might need someone here if it goes badly."

"She is in good hands. I have spoken to the staff at reception: they will call us both if there are any... changes."

"Changes?"

"Yes."

"Right."

"Do you want a lift?"

"What?"

"I have my car with me. Can I drive you home? Or maybe you would like to get something to eat first: you've been awake all night and you haven't eaten a thing!"

"Yeah," Lex mused, suddenly realising how hungry he was, "food would be a definite plus!"


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Lex rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up. Confused by his surroundings, he looked around him and spotted the girl in the bed next to him: Tai San. Grabbing the clock from the table next to the bed, he peered at the time. It was almost noon. Lex groaned and hurriedly put the clock back in place, scanning the room for his clothes. As he threw the clothes on, he heard Tai San stir in the bed he had just left.

"That t-shirt is on backwards," she said, making Lex look up at her.

"Do you know what time it is?" Lex replied, turning away again and hunting for his other shoe, "We should be back at the hospital."

"They would have called if there was any news."

"Ryan needs us with him."

"Of course," Tai San assented, a small smile flickering across her face.

xxxx

Amber checked her makeup in her small mirror for the fourth time and stopped abruptly as she walked into tall, suited young man with wavy, light brown hair.

"Oh, sorry," Amber apologised immediately, "I didn't see you!"

"It's okay, it was my fault," the young man replied, "I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm a bit lost, I'm afraid. My sister-in-law wants to take part in a project run by some bunch of guys on this campus, but I have no idea where they're based."

"What's the project?" Amber asked, "Maybe I can help."

"Oh, some virtual reality thing. She's had an accident and they think this would help her."

"I know who you mean; well, I know of them. They're based in that building over there," Amber pointed out the tall building that housed the computer labs. You'd best ask at the desk though, I don't know what floor they're on. The guy running it is called Ramsey McDonald: he and his friends have been canvassing most of the campus for volunteers."

"I thought the guy running it was called Jay?"

"Oh, you mean Jayson Dawson? Yeah, he works on that project too but Ramsey is in charge."

"That's great, thanks," the young man extended his hand, "my name's Bray Fielding. Maybe I could buy you a coffee to say thank you properly?"

"That's sweet of you, but I'm meeting my girlfriend, I'm afraid."

"Oh! Ah, well, I guess I'd better not make you late. Thanks again. Bye."

Amber laughed as she watched Bray turn and hurry down the hill to the building she had pointed out. He hadn't even recognised her! Admittedly, she hadn't known him at first either, but she had known who he was as soon as he mentioned his sister-in-law: she had heard about Trudy's 'accident' on the news. Turning back round she headed up the hill once more to meet Jewel.

xxxx

Ebony curled up in a comfy chair in the college's students' union cafe. She had spent the first half of her lab fighting with Jack and the last half not talking to him. The reality of his words had hurt her so much that just talking to him risked revealing how she really felt. She knew she would have to face him sooner or later. Either she kept on pretending and kept on hurting, or she told him the truth and risked being hurt even more, but then at least it would be over and she could maybe try to move on. She sipped at the mug of hot chocolate in her hands and gazed at the uneaten remains of her sandwich. She would have to tell him, she decided, but not yet.

xxxx

Jack sighed and got up from the computer he was working at. He had stayed in the labs after class, avoiding Ebony. He was sure he had seen something in her face when he said they weren't a couple. Was it just shock? Or had he actually hurt her by saying that. She had certainly hurt him when she told him they were just friends; she had hurt him much more than he had expected. Jack closed his eyes and listened to the song playing on his personal minidisc player.

_What's the way of love?_

_What's the way of love?_

_Tell me your fiction_

_Tell me your lies_

_Say to me now, you'll never forget this night_

_I'm feeling emotionless_

_My head's so clear_

_My enemies aren't, the ones I fear_

_You know your kiss confuses_

_This troubling soul_

_And I found out_

_That we're all breaking hearts_

_That we're all broken hearts_

_If only love could find us all_

_If only hearts didn't have to fall_

_We can't mislead to make things right_

_So instead we'll sleep alone tonight_

As the song played, Jack got up and headed to the snack room on that level. It wasn't far from the labs, but is was completely deserted. Grabbing a chocolate bar from the machine, he sat down in a corner and rested the back of his head against the wall, listening to the song continuing.

_These walls we made are glass_

_And they have been known to crack_

_But until then_

_You'll keep pushing my way_

_And I'll keep pushing you away_

_If only love could find us all_

_If only hearts didn't have to fall_

_We can't mislead to make things right_

_So instead we'll sleep alone tonight_

_If you want to take a chance_

_And try to make things right_

_You better have a reason to be loved_

_We all want something more_

_And it is worth fighting for_

_If only love could find us all_

_If only hearts didn't have to fall_

_We can't mislead to make things right_

_So instead we'll sleep alone tonight_

Suddenly Jack felt a cloth be clamped over his mouth and nose. He only had a few brief seconds to recognise the smell of chloroform before consciousness slipped away into the final verse of the song.

_And if somehow fate were in my hands_

_Would it be enough to understand_

_Why we feel lost in a world so small_

_If only love could find us all..._


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Jack woke up in utter darkness. The room around him was cold and damp, like a basement or cellar, and without any source of light. He felt around, blindly. He was on the floor, but on an old, threadbare mattress. There was one blanket under his head and another draped over him. He was nowhere near the walls of the room, as far as he could tell, but the air in the room was dank and stale, suggesting again that he was below ground level. The floor beneath the mattress also played witness to this fact, being made of cold, hard concrete with no covering over it. He could see nothing. He could smell nothing, except the mouldy, dead air. He could hear... something.

As his head cleared further, Jack became aware of a familiar, but distant, buzzing noise: the faint hum of a computer. There was one, if not in the same room as himself, not very far away. He felt around the mattress in the dark, then searched his own pockets. His minidisc player was gone, as was the chocolate bar he had been eating when he was attacked, his wallet, keys and Swiss army knife. His boots were lying by the mattress so, tipping them upside down to make sure nothing was in them, he put them on and stood up.

Navigating oneself in a pitch black room, when one has no idea in what direction one is facing or what obstacles may lie in one's way, is something that should only ever be attempted with caution. Therefore, Jack had barely gone three paces away from the mattress before he walked face first into a wall.

Rubbing his nose and forehead, Jack rested his left hand on the, slightly slimy, wall and started to make a clockwise circuit of the room. After turning the first corner, Jack walked into a table-like object whose corners were situated at a rather unfortunate and painful height. Nursing the newly afflicted area with one hand and swearing quietly, he felt across the table and found it held at least some of the objects he had been missing. The minidisc player, wallet and keys were lying side by side in the centre of the table. The half-eaten chocolate bar and his penknife were gone.

Jack replaced the keys and minidisc player in his pockets and carefully opened his wallet. Feeling through the contents, he sighed as he found his set of watchmaker screwdrivers were also gone. Closing the wallet, he replaced it in his back pocket and returned to his circuit of the room. Thankfully, the table object was the only item against that wall and the next. The next wall, however, had a wooden staircase protruding from its side. Unable to protect both upper and lower parts of his body with just one hand, Jack found the staircase by walking into it. Rubbing his bruised forehead once again, he felt along the line of the staircase until he found its end and began climbing it. He found the door at the top without incident, but it was locked and bolted from the outside. He felt around for a light switch or cord, but found nothing.

Jack sat down on the top step, nursing his injuries and wondering what to do next. From what he could tell, the room he was in was about five by six meters, but he didn't know how high. The only pieces of furniture he had found so far were the mattress he had been lying on and the two blankets, the table thing he had walked into and the stairs he had also walked into. He hadn't checked the remainder of the wall he had started with yet, nor the interior of the room. He had nothing that he could use to create a light or pick the lock or hinges on the door. He worked his way down the steps and resumed his circuit of the walls.

xxxx

Cloe drew in her breath sharply as her virtual self swooped over a rain forest canopy, the tips of her toes trailing through the treetops. A flock of brightly coloured, elaborately feathered birds swung out of the shelter of their leafy home and flew alongside her. Suddenly they reached a sharp drop off and, as Cloe dived, her avian companions returned to the trees. Almost vertical, head-down, she plummeted downwards. Below her, she could see the silver, shining course of a river and swung her course round to meet it. As she rushed down to skim the surface of the water, turning to follow the course of the river upstream, against the current, she felt the spray of water against her face, cooling her. She followed the river over calm, deep pools and raging, white-water torrents, gradually moving uphill, until she reached a tall waterfall, about twice as wide as she was. Turning vertical once more, she paused. Joining her hands above her head to form a sharp wedge, she dove into the sheet of water, flying upwards, her hands separating the water around her like a curtain. She reached the top, bursting out of the water like one of Poseidon's mythical nymphs. As she hovered above the water, she noticed a familiar face standing by the riverside and swooped down to Ved's side.

"It's amazing!" Cloe gushed, her dark eyes wide with excitement.

"Enjoy yourself?" Ved asked, smirking, his grey eyes twinkling mischievously.

"It's fantastic! I can't believe it's possible!"

"It's just a matter of tricking the brain in the right way. It's getting late, though, we'd better go."

"Do we have to?" Cloe groaned.

"Yes! Ram is due any time soon and Jay and Mega are usually even earlier. If they catch us, we'll be in big trouble!"

"I guess," Cloe's shoulders sagged as she resigned herself to leaving her leafy paradise.

"We'll come back some time," Ved assured her, raising a hand to a nearby tree trunk and pressing a particular knot in it's bark, "Just not when the others are around."

As the headsets automatically lifted off the two teens, Cloe primped her hair and Ved looked around the room nervously. The room was still empty, for now, but the time was later than he had thought and his brother and the others would be due much sooner than he had anticipated.

"Come on, we've got to go," he said, grabbing Cloe's hand.

As she followed him to the door, they heard a door slam further down the corridor. The only door down that corridor was the one leading to the main hallway of the building and the only people likely to be using it were Jay, Mega and Ram.

"Quick, in here," Ved cried in hushed tones, dragging Cloe through a nearby door into a storeroom, "We should be okay in here: I've never seen them use this room."

"Um, Ved?" Cloe began, her words failing as she gazed around the room they were in.

"What?" Ved asked, looking round suddenly then stopping as his eyes adjusted tot he dull, pulsating light of the room.

The room was filled with circular metal stands from each of which hung four, white clad, zombie-like figures. Metal probes protruded from inch-wide metal bands crowning the heads of each of the figures, a dull light radiating from each of the probes. Monitors attached to each of the figures recorded measurements of heart rate, breathing and brain activity, lights next to the heart rate reading pulsing steadily. The pulse rates were different for each of the figures and much faster than normal in many. Ved noticed that some of the figures had no light pulsing and the monitors they were attached to read nothing but plain, flat lines.


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Ved and Cloe has stood by the door listening intently. The footsteps had receded to the other side of the room and another set of footsteps had joined them. Ved could hear faint voices from the far side of the door, one of which he recognised, one of which he did not. The slow, cool, calm drawl could only belong to Mega; the other voice, which sounded nervous and somewhat desperate, was unknown to him. As he listened, he found the voices growing louder: they were walking towards him and the door. Torn between the worry of being discovered and the desire to eavesdrop, Ved lingered by the door for a moment before turning and, taking Cloe's arm, heading down the steps into the forest of bodies. As he and Cloe ducked behind one set of apparatus the door opened, silhouetting Mega and the unknown man within its frame.

"The sight can be very distressing at first," Mega drawled, "but I assure you all of these volunteers were in a merely vegetative state with minimal brain output before being attached to these systems."

"And now?" the man asked.

"Now," Mega replied, "now we are seeing considerable brain activity in ninety per cent of subjects."

"And at the other ten per cent?"

"Some, unfortunately, have died, that is true; others have shown no improvement as yet. Those who have died, however, were those who were least suitable for this trial."

After a short while, Mega drew the other man back into the previous room and closed the door. Ved and Cloe moved forward in time to hear the lock of the door click into place.

"Great!" Cloe said, throwing up her hands in exasperation, "now we're locked in here with a bunch of dead and nearly dead bodies."

"They're not nearly dead," Ved replied, "They're just unconscious. And who knows: maybe if they weren't connected to these machines they would be dead."

Cloe scowled at him. Ved sighed and looked about the room. There were no other visible exits but, between the odd light and numerous bodies hanging from the machines, it was hard to be sure.

xxxx

Jack sighed as he lay on the blankets in the middle of his cell. If there had been any light in the room for his eyes to get used to they would have been used to it by now, but there wasn't. He had tried playing music on his minidisc player, but for some reason it wasn't working. He didn't know how long he had been in the room. He didn't know if it was the same day, or if it was even day at all. Eventually, amidst the silence, he heard a sound. The lock on the door clicked open and the light in the room flashed on, blinding him in its brightness.

"Who's there?" Jack asked, shading his eyes against the light.

"What? You don't recognise me?" a voice drawled.

The voice that had answered was vaguely familiar. Jack racked his brain to put a face to the voice, but could not.

"Well, I guess that's to be expected: you never seemed to listen to me much anyway! I can assure you though, that's going to change. You're never going to stop listening now."

Realisation hit home like a fist into Jack's stomach: the voice belonged to Ram. All the projects Jack had worked on in his computer labs, under Ram supervision, suddenly seemed suspicious and eerie. He had never paid too much attention to why he was doing the projects, or precisely what they were designed to do, but had merely got on with doing them. Now, as his mind went over the various projects themselves, the pieces seem to fit together like one giant, horrendous jigsaw puzzle. The only question remaining in Jack's mind was why he, and none of the other students, was imprisoned in this room.

"I expect you're wondering why you're here. Not in the existential sense of course, but in the literal," Ram drawled arrogantly, "Well now, that, Jacky-boy, is a little matter known only to a few. The fact is: you have something I want. Well, a few things actually. In terms of the project, you have the knowledge I need. In other matters, you have the girl I want."

"What do you mean?" Jack muttered, rubbing his eyes, "What girl? Ellie?"

"Ellie?" Ram exclaimed, "Who's Ellie? It's Ebony I'm talking about."

xxxx

Ebony sat on the stool by the breakfast bar in her flat. The mug of coffee in her hands had gone cold and she had been staring at the same page in her book for almost two hours. A knock at the door made to start, jumping to her feet so suddenly that both stool and coffee cup toppled to the floor. Muttering a curse as cold coffee drenched the leg of her trousers, Ebony hurried to the door and opened it without reserve. As soon as she did so, she tried to close it again.

"What's the matter little sister? Aren't you pleased to see me?"

Ebony stepped back as Java pushed her way into the room.

"Nice little place you have here," Java remarked, looking about her as she did so.

"What do you want?" Ebony asked.

"Can't a girl pop by to see her baby sister?"

"Since when have you ever been interested in your baby sister?" Ebony asked icily.

"Since my baby sister caught the interest of someone else," Java replied, "and since that someone else decided he just _had_ to meet you."

Java sidled over to Ebony as she spoke, until they were only inches away from each other. Although shorter than her sister, Ebony held her gaze and her ground stubbornly.

"Care to come along quietly?" Java asked, "Or are you going to dig your heels in as usual?"

Ebony bit her lip as she considered her sister's words, but remained silent.

"Perhaps it would be better if we did this the hard way anyway," Java surmised, "Just to be on the safe side."

Ebony gasped as she felt a slight jab in her arm, then slumped into blackness.


	17. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Ebony awoke surrounded by blackness and lying on a cold stone floor. She stretched out her hands to either side of her, but felt nothing. She stretched above her: nothing. Getting slowly to her feet, she felt her head swim dizzyingly and staggered slightly before regaining her balance. Again she felt out to her sides, edging forwards as she went, but felt nothing. Suddenly the room was filled with bright, blinding light.

"Awake then, little sis?" Java's voice drawled from some unseen source, "Well, lets see what you make of this. It's a little game we've set up, you see: a maze. All you have to do is find the way out and you're free. Problem is: the way out is locked and the key is hidden in the maze. You'll have to find that first."

The light dimmed to reveal a rather nondescript room with light grey breeze-block walls and cement ceiling and floor; there was a door in the centre of each wall. Ebony was standing just off centre in the room and there was nothing else in the room with her, not even anything that could provide the source of Java's voice. Ebony frowned, still slightly dizzy, and rubbed her eyes. She looked around at the four doors in turn, but they were all identical. Tentatively, she stepped forward and tried the door in front of her, then jumped back as an electric shock ran through her.

"Oh, yes," Java's voice rang out again, "I forgot: some of the doors are booby trapped. Some of the corridors too. Not that it necessarily means they're the wrong ones of course, or that the ones without the traps are the right ones!"

When Lex and Tai San reached the ward, the staff nurse pulled them aside immediately.

"What? What's wrong?" Lex asked, panicking.

"I'm sorry, but you'll really have to wait here. You're friend is very upset. I have to check first if it's okay to let you through."

"Upset?" Lex repeated as the nurse disappeared from view, "So Zandra's awake then? She's awake and they've told her she can't have any more kids and now she's upset?"

Tai San frowned slightly.

"It was you, was it not?" she asked, glancing up at Lex's worried face.

"What?" Lex replied, flicking his gaze between Tai San and the place where the nurse had disappeared.

"You were the father of Zandra's child. The one that miscarried three years ago."

"I... What? How?"

"She knew me then also. She spoke to me and confided in me much, but not enough to tell me who the father was."

"You knew she was pregnant?"

"You did not?"

"No!"

"I am sorry. She told me of the pregnancy and I was with her when the child died inside her. She swore me to secrecy: Ryan was never to know. She would not tell me who the father was, only that if Ryan ever found out who he was, it would kill him. I do not know, obviously, everyone who was close enough to Ryan three years ago to cause such a feeling of betrayal, but right now you are the only one here for him and there have been several times when I was not sure that your worry was not also partly guilt. I watched your face as Ryan was telling us what the doctors said about Zandra's miscarriage. I saw you working it out."

"Zandra was right: it would kill him if he found out. It wasn't supposed to happen. We met after Zandra was going steady with Ryan and... I don't know... There was something there. But he was my best friend and, after coming close a few times, we agreed nothing should happen."

"Something obviously did."

"It was just after Zandra had moved in to Ryan's: her landlord had chucked her out and she had nowhere else to go and they were getting married in six months anyway so she moved in to the spare room. Ryan had to go away for a while, I don't know why, can't remember, but he asked me to stay in _his_ room while he was away, so that Zandra wouldn't be in a strange house by herself. I stayed. We went out one night: Ryan had told me to take Zandra round the local nightspots. We got drunk..."

"And one thing led to another, as the saying goes."

"It was just one night! I had no idea she was pregnant! We never spoke about it again. We just stayed out of each other's way until Ryan got home."

"I wonder what Zandra will tell Ryan if he asks her about it."

"He'll ask her," Lex said with a resigned tone.

Just then, the nurse returned.

"You can go through now. I've spoken to your friend and he wants to see you both."

"He?" Lex replied, bewildered, as Tai San grabbed his arm and propelled him hurriedly down the corridor, following the nurse.

The nurse stopped by a door marked "Relatives Only" and beckoned to them to enter. Tai San turned the handle and the door swung open to reveal Ryan, standing with his back to them, staring out of the window. Lex's mouth opened and closed, but he said nothing as Tai San shoved him into the room and closed the door behind them.

"Ryan?" Tai San said quietly.

The tall man sniffed and turned to face them. It was clear, even silhouetted in the window, that he had been crying. His voice trembled as he spoke.

"She's gone," Ryan said simply.

"Wh-what?" Lex took a step back, shaking his head, "N-no, that can't be right!"

"When?" Tai San asked, ignoring Lex.

"About an hour ago," Ryan answered thickly, "Just before noon. I, um, I tried calling, later, after the shock had worn off, but neither of you were home and Lex's mobile was ringing out."

"We were on our way here," Tai San explained as she watched Lex check his pockets out of the corner of her eye, "We thought it best to stay together in case you called."

"I-I must have left my phone..." Lex muttered in the background.

"And the baby?" Tai San asked.

"What about him?" Ryan murmured apathetically.

"How is he?"

"I don't know," Ryan shrugged, "I don't care."

"Ryan, he's your son!"

"He's the reason she's dead!"

xxxx

"Will you quit following me!" KC yelled at the young girl in the pink, fur-lined jacket walking a few feet behind him.

"I can't help it if you're going the same way I am!" Patsy replied, innocently.

"Yeah, right! You wouldn't even have considered this thing if I hadn't said I was going to go for it!"

"You're not the only one who could do with some extra cash, you know!"

"Whatever!"

KC turned back and stormed on ahead, quickening his pace in the hope of leaving Patsy behind. He didn't know the college campus that well, though, and every time he stopped to ask directions, she caught him up.

"What way are we going now?" Patsy asked.

"WE aren't going anywhere! I am going in here!" KC yelled, indicating the computing building with his thumb, "You can go where you like!"

"Well, I'm going in there too then!" Patsy replied, indignantly, "I want to be part of this trial thingy too: it sounds like fun!"

KC sighed and headed into the building, following the latest set of directions he'd just been given. He wound his way through the corridors and up the stairway to the labs, knocking on the door with the correct number when he reached it. It was opened by a tall, dark young woman with braided hair and large almond-shaped eyes. Her lips curved into a smile as she stood back and waved them inside.

"More recruits, Mega," the young woman drawled.

"Indeed," replied a tall, thin bespectacled young man, rising from a chair by a computer and surveying KC and Patsy, "Thank you, Java, I'll see to the details if you would monitor... our other recruits."

Java nodded and took Mega's place by the computer as he stepped forward to lead KC and Patsy through to another, adjoining, room. In the room there were several computers and a dozen or so contraptions that looked like a cross between a hairdresser's dryer and a dentists chair. Most of them were occupied.

"This is where the project is running from, more or less," Mega explained smoothly, "Each chair has a headset and monitoring equipment attached. You would be fully monitored during the experiment and all your data and vital signs logged on these computers."

"There are fewer computers than chairs," Patsy cut in.

"Each computer monitors four chairs, with the ability to monitor more should the need arise. The other computers are hardly ever used unless one of the others has a problem. It's always useful to have spares with these sort of projects. They continuously monitor and record all the same data, so that we have two individual copies of everything, but other than for comparison checks, we don't generally use them for much. There are eight computers, sixteen chairs. Every pair of computers always monitors the same group of chairs."

"How long do people spend in those chairs?" KC asked.

"As long as they want, really," Mega replied, "We monitor over set periods of course, but it's up to you whether you stay for a half hour, hour, two hours or anything up to eight hours. We're monitoring the differences in effect, you see. Separate charts for separate times.

"And if you don't like it and want out?"

"Then, at the end of your time period, you tell us and we pay you for the time you've completed. We can probably still use the results to some effect, but no-one has backed out yet, so I don't know for sure."

"And you're in charge?"

"There are a number of us working on this project, but myself and Ram are in charge."

"Ram?"

"Ramsey MacDonald, his name is on the leaflet you have there."

"Oh, yes."

"He's out just now, taking a class or a lab or following up something for the project. There are a few other main people helping out: Jay Dawson and Java through there are often seen around the place. Jay is Ram's assistant, Java is mine."

KC winced slightly at the emphasis Mega put on his last word, but nodded and said nothing.

"When can we start?" Patsy asked eagerly.

"Right now, if you want to," Mega replied, "We have some chairs free and I don't expect the place to fill up until much later. People usually come in after work, you see."

"Great!" Patsy cried, letting Mega lead her over to one of the empty chairs and strap her in, "I need to be out in three hours though, to go to work."

"Certainly," Mega replied, placing the helmet over her head, flicking a switch and keying in a few numbers on a keypad behind the chair.

"I guess I'm free for three hours too," KC said as Mega looked over to him enquiringly, "Don't you need to take some details first?"

"No, the programme gets you to do all that when you first go in. It's a little sort of control programme that we put in to make sure everything is okay. If it is, you'll progress to the main programme, if not, you'll come out of it."

KC shrugged and sat down in an empty chair beside Patsy. He watched as Mega attached the straps and monitors and then glanced up into blackness as the helmet was lowered over his head.


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"E-Ellie?"

Ellie turned round quickly, bumping the shop window she had been peering into with her rucksack.

"Luke!" Ellie's eyes widened as she saw who had spoken and noted the change in his appearance, "What happened?"

"Whaddya mean?" Luke slurred, walking rather unsteadily towards Ellie before stopping and leaning against the wall next to the shop window, "You... You know wazappened... You... the one... chea'ed... on ME!"

"You're drunk," Ellie said, matter-of-factly, ignoring the content of Luke's speech and concentrating on its incoherence, "Come on. I'll take you back to the hotel."

"N-not drunk. Been worse 'an this. Jus' sligh'ly... tipsy."

Ellie ignored him and put out her hand to take his arm.

"N-no. D-don' nee' your 'elp. Can fin'... own way."

"No you can't," Ellie carried on firmly, grasping Luke's arm and turning him round, "You're going in the wrong direction."

"Wozzun going t'otel. Woz going pub."

"Tough."

Half pushing, half dragging the staggering Luke, Ellie finally made it to the lobby of the hotel he always stayed in. She dragged him up to the reception desk and looked around for a porter.

"Luke!"

Ellie turned at the sound of a female voice from across the lobby. As her eyes sought the source of the sound, she saw Salene, her scarlet hair bobbing about as she hurried towards them.

"Wh-who are you?" Ellie asked as Salene reached them, "I know you don't I? I've seen you before somewhere."

"You're so observant!" Salene replied sarcastically, "I must have served you a dozen times in that restaurant. Tell me, I never quite got the order clear: was it boyfriend number two or boyfriend number three who took you there? I noticed he never let you pay for anything. Not that you ever offered to of course."

"What are you doing here? How do you know Luke?"

"He's an old friend, for your information, not that it's any of your business of course. I hadn't seen him in a while and he's not been returning my calls so I thought I'd check he was okay. It tends to hurt, you see, finding out your girlfriend's been three-timing you!"

"I didn't mean to hurt him!"

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't! That would have meant him finding out, after all, and we couldn't have that, now could we?"

"Hey!"

"Excuse me ladies," a male receptionist butted in, "may I help you?"

Ellie looked round and found that Luke had disappeared.

"Wh-where's he gone!" Salene exclaimed.

"Where has whom gone, madam?"

"Luke..." Ellie muttered.

"He was right here..." Salene added.

"He was drunk..." Ellie explained.

"And he's gone!" Salene finished.

The receptionist eyed them suspiciously.

"If you mean Mr Peterson, I can tell you that he staggered up the main staircase in the direction of his room just a few moments ago. Around about when you were shouting about him not returning someone's calls."

Ellie and Salene glanced at each other and rushed off in the direction of the stairs.

xxxx

Ebony glanced around her. She was sure she had been here before. She had tried the door she thought should lead her out, but it had merely given her another shock. She tried another, jumping back when it also dispensed shock treatment. That left one more door and the one she had entered the room through. Tentatively, she tried the third door. Another shock. It was a dead end. She would have to go back. She headed back for the door she had entered the room through.

"Arg!" Ebony screamed out as the final door delivered a shock greater than any of the others.

Could she have mistaken the door? She went round the doors again, clockwise. Each one gave her an electric shock, each shock was greater than the last.

"No!" Ebony yelled, balling her hands into fists, "Javaaaaa! Let me out! I know you can hear me!"

Behind her, Ebony heard a door open and close. She spun round.

"Jack!" Ebony cried, freezing, "What? What are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"It's okay, Ebony," Jack replied calmly, holding his hand out to her, "Come with me. It's this way."

Ebony ran, full speed, across the room to him, flinging her arms out to hug him. She hit the wall behind him with a thud and fell back, unconscious, onto the floor. Glancing down at her, the image of Jack slowly faded from view.

xxxx

"Are you comfortable, Mrs Fielding?"

"Yes, thank you," Trudy smiled up at the tall, blonde-haired young man.

"Now, Mrs Fielding, you know how to get out if you want to leave the trial early?"

"It's okay, Jay, I know," Trudy nodded, "And you don't have to keep calling me Mrs Fielding: Trudy will do."

"Of course," Jay smiled down at Trudy as she sat in the chair, the helmet poised to be lowered over her head.

Trudy smiled back up at him. His deep, dark eyes were the last thing she saw as the helmet was lowered onto her head. For a moment there was nothing but darkness, then a tiny bleep, which she more felt than heard, and she felt herself falling as if in a dream. As she fell, a light grew steadily from below her. She closed her eyes automatically. She felt herself slow and her feet touched something solid. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was high on a mountain looking out over the city. Turning around she saw the ruins of an old building. Frowning, she tried to call to mind the hills and mountains outside the city. Only one had such a view as well as a building on its summit: Eagle mountain. The building had been an observatory, but it had been whole as far as Trudy knew.

Perhaps this was the future of the city she was seeing, Trudy surmised. She walked a little way across the summit of the mountain and saw something else that caught her eye. What she saw appeared to be a graveyard of sorts, but not like the old graveyards you saw in the city. Marking each grave was a wooden cross made of two sticks bound together with some kind of string. Covering each grave was a rectangular pile of stones, like cairns.

Trudy stepped a little closer, examining each of the graves in turn. There were no names on them. One had some kind of necklace bound around it. She put out a hand to touch it and saw that her nails, once chipped and broken, were now beautifully manicured and painted a dark shade of purple. She glanced down at her body and found her clothes had also changed. She was now attired in a bright lime-green coat with darker green bands of fake fur with purple clad legs protruding below it, ending in large, sturdy, dark purple boots.

Raising her eyebrows, Trudy turned away from the graves and made her way down the mountainside, wondering what else she would find in this new world.

xxxx

Ved stopped running suddenly and pulled Cloe back against the wall of the alley they were in. Moments later a troop of weirdly dressed young men and women sped past on roller blades, their faces painted in angry colours and designs. A police siren sounded in the distance and somewhere there was a scream.

"How do we get out of here?" Cloe asked in a frightened whisper.

"You don't," drawled a voice behind them.

Both Ved and Cloe spun round instantaneously. Before them stood Mega, watching them quite calmly. He was wearing a tight fitting black outfit that looked as though the top at least was constructed of lycra. Cloe glanced up and down, or rather down and up, and became aware that her mouth was hanging open. She shut it rather quickly and hoped Ved hadn't noticed. Mega smiled, cold amusement playing on his features.

"Let us out of here," Ved demanded, "My brother will be looking for me!"

"Actually, no," Mega drawled, "Your brother is rather busy comforting a young, mildly pretty, widow and making sure her programme doesn't bring her to harm. Shame we can't extend the same curtesy to you, but then you never did sign any forms, you just broke in here and jammed a headset on: how could we stop you."

"We didn't touch the headsets," Cloe retorted, "You and that woman with you put them on us!"

"And when your dear brother does find out," Mega carried on, ignoring her, "we won't be able to just tear you out of here: that might do more harm than good. You'll just have to find the way out on your own. Both of you."

"Then that's what we'll do!" Cloe cried defiantly.

"No," Mega corrected her calmly, already fading from view, "You won't."


	19. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Jack sat curled up in a corner of his pitch black room. He had no idea what time it was or even whether it was day or night. He didn't know how many days had passed. Food arrived at irregular intervals far enough apart to ensure that he was always starving when it arrived. He had neither seen nor heard Ram again and when food was left at the top of the stairs for him, the person delivering it was always silhouetted and of slighter frame than Ram.

As his mind began to doze once more, he heard a shuffling and a click and light suddenly enveloped him. Blinded by the light, Jack raised a hand to his eyes and felt his arm grabbed by unseen hands. He was roughly raised to his feet and herded towards the staircase, up the stairs and out of the room. He had barely been dragged ten paces beyond the confines of his prison before he was lifted and thrown into a padded chair that reminded him somewhat of the dentist's. As his vision slowly returned he caught a glimpse of a variety of control panels before a dark helmet was slammed over his head.

For a moment, everything was black. The feeling of the chair faded from Jack's senses until he felt that he was suspended in total darkness. A point of light appeared in the distance, growing steadily larger until Jack got the feeling that, rather than it speeding towards him, he was falling into it. The light widened and Jack could make out colours and shapes forming. As he watched he saw a landscape form below him. He was falling towards it. He could feel the wind forming against his face. He could see the forest below him building itself even as he dropped towards it. The thick, verdant green of the treetops grew closer until Jack felt them brushing against him, snagging his clothes and dragging his body round mid-flight until at last he reached the ground with a thud and the world went black once more.

xxxx

"Have you seen this?" Jewel murmured as Amber settled herself at the breakfast table next to her.

"Seen what?" Amber asked, looking over at the newspaper Jewel was reading.

"Apparently people have been disappearing," Jewel said, her eyes fixed on the page before her, "It says here that two kids disappeared a week ago after one of their shifts at the local supermarket and then failed to turn up for their next one. Plus there's the girl who's writing this: an old boyfriend of hers has disappeared along with his new girlfriend, although the girlfriend's eldest sister says its nothing uncommon for her to disappear for weeks at a time with no word to anyone."

"So doesn't that just mean that the ex-boyfriend has run off with his new girlfriend for a bit? They're probably trying to get away from the ex-girlfriend writing the story!"

"Hmmm. It's odd, I'm sure I recognise the girl's name."

"What is it?"

"Carruthers, Ellie Carruthers."

"What?" Amber looked up sharply, "That's the girl Dal was seeing. I'm sure it is. She was seeing two other guys at the same time, remember? He shut himself in his room for a week about that one. He's still moping!"

"I knew I recognised her name! So which of the three has disappeared then? It can't be Dal, we'd know if it was him."

Amber began to nod, then got up and walked to the kitchen door with a thoughtful look on her face.

"Dal?" Amber shouted, "Dal, where are you?"

"What is it?" Dal's muffled voice replied from the direction of his room.

"Never mind," Amber called, relieved.

"It's definitely not him then," Jewel said as Amber sat back down.

"I never thought is was!" Amber said airily as she turned her attention back to her breakfast.

xxxx

Trudy reached the bottom of the mountain she had started her journey on. She was standing by a path that ran off in two directions, one to her right, one to her left. She could either go left, in the direction of the city she had seen from the top of the mountain, or right and see where that path led her. She was curious about the city, but she knew where that was and could go back to it later. After all, although she had no idea exactly how long she had in here, or even if time moved the same way, she felt she would have enough time to see everything she wanted to see.

She headed off down the right-hand path. It was a little overgrown in places, but not so much as to make it impassable. Eventually it joined a larger, wider path and Trudy followed it in the general direction she had been going. She had only gone a small distance when she heard a faint roaring in the background and turned to see a small dark shape hurtling towards her along the track. The shape grew larger and resolved itself into the form of a figure on a motorbike. The motorbike sped towards her, swerving at the last minute to avoid hitting her as she stood, dumbfounded in the path. As it did so, Trudy heard the screech of brakes as the rider reigned the bike to a halt and turned to face her.

"Are you mad?" drawled a smooth, English voice.

"Y-you surprised me," Trudy stammered, "I wasn't expecting to see anyone here, let alone anyone on a motorbike!"

"Well, where are you going?"

"I-I don't know. Anywhere I guess."

"Well hop on," the rider said after a short pause, waiting while Trudy did so before adding: "and hold tight."

"Come on, come with me," Tai San said playfully, nudging Lex as she did so, "It will take your mind off things."

"I suppose I have nothing better to do," Lex sighed gloomily, "My best friend hates me and, because he hates me I now have no job, no home and nothing to do all day."

"You have me," Tai San reminded him, "And I am going to this university trial so you might as well come with me."

"I thought you didn't like technology?"

"I do not mind it as long as it is not destructive. This does not appear to be destructive, merely fun, with an aim of helping people recover after spinal or mental injuries. It is the same trial that the woman you saved is taking part in."

"And what a great job I did of saving her! She can't walk!"

"Not just now, perhaps, but with the help of this technology, she should regain full use of her limbs. If you had not intervened when you did, she would have no need of such technology, it is true, but only because she would already be dead. You cannot berate yourself for the deeds of others."

"No, but I can curse myself for not stopping it sooner."

"You did all that could be done. Come, let us go and find out what this trial is all about. As I said: it will take your mind off things."

Lex shrugged and let Tai San drag him through the park towards the university. He felt he should be with Ryan, but ever since Ryan had found out the truth behind Zandra's previous pregnancy he had disowned Lex and thrown him out, saying that he never wanted to see him again. He might as well go with Tai San: there was nothing else for him to do, nowhere else for him to go and nobody else that he could talk to.

Ved spun Cloe round and slammed her against the wall with a thud, knocking the air out of her. As she opened her mouth to protest, he clamped a hand over it and shook his head vehemently. As he did so, several kids on roller blades skated past, baseball bats, hockey sticks and metal pipes in their hands.

"Zoot! Zoot! Zoot!" the kids chanted as they passed.

"That hurt!" Cloe hissed once Ved had released her.

"Not half as much as a bunch of those crazies would!" Ved replied, "We've got to be careful! Mega's probably programmed this world to give us only the smallest possible chance of survival, and that's just so that he can prolong the agony!"

"Who knows! And anyway, what's this 'Zoot' thing they keep shouting about?"

"I don't think it's a 'what', I think it's a 'who' and I don't think that I want to meet them, whoever they are!"

"So what do we do? We can't stay here forever!"

"Try and find somewhere safe? Get inside? Maybe try and get out of the city, I don't know. Considering who put us here I'm not even sure there is a way out of this city!"

"So we start by getting inside then. Where?"

"Let's go back this way. I'm sure I saw a door down here somewhere."


	20. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

"Look at this place!" Patsy squealed excitedly as she and KC wandered into the small saloon bar.

Together, they had been walking for what seemed to them to be days, travelling from one small town or village to the next. Now they found themselves in a small settlement called Liberty, looking across a quiet saloon at a bar, behind which a tall, blonde girl was serving drinks to oddly dressed customers. As oddly dressed as the other inhabitants of the bar were, KC and Patsy no longer noticed. Their own clothing had become different when they entered the virtual world and everyone in the world seemed to be wearing their own, unique, definition of fashion. The two travellers were used to the odd hairstyles too: KC's head now being adorned with blue-green spikes and Patsy's with black, loosely curled locks with bleached streaks and a bleached, asymmetric fringe. They were also used to the strange makeup being worn by both the male and female inhabitants of the virtual world and had found their own faces bearing similar, yet individual, markings. The two markings they seemed to share were a pentagram in a circle on the back of their left hands and a wedge-shaped, brick red marking on their right cheeks.

"Don't you think this has been going on for a long time?" KC muttered as Patsy gazed at her surroundings.

"Don't be silly!" Patsy giggled, "It's a virtual world - nothing's real! Time probably isn't real either. Just like when you're dreaming, you know? Time seems to move differently."

"I still think there's something odd about this."

"Let's go have a drink!"

Grabbing KC's unwilling hand, Patsy bounced up to the bar and waited to be served.

xxxx

Ellie sighed and banged her head against the desk as her computer crashed again. She would only lose a few minutes work, but that was because she had taken to saving her data every five minutes. There was a pop and the computer screen went blank. In a moment, Ellie knew, the rest of the power would go too. With a slight fizzing, the lights flickered and went out. Another power cut. It was the third one that day and it wasn't even lunch time yet.

Ellie sat back in her chair and sighed again. There was no point hunting for candles: the power would be back on in ten minutes at the most. The power cuts had been happening all week, growing steadily more frequent as the week wore on. It had been on the news, but only as one of the minor items. The city council said that there was a power shortage and they were working on it. They hadn't said anything more officially, but one of Ellie's contacts had told her that there was something big in the city that was drawing all the power and that the council didn't know what it was. They hadn't even been able to pinpoint the source of the power as it seemed to be drawing from every individual area power grid in the city in turn, sometimes on the west side, sometimes in the centre, sometimes in the docks area.

Ellie closed her eyes and tried to remember her wording. A few minutes later and her reverie was disturbed by a dull light shining through her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes and blinked in the relatively bright light of a candle. When her vision had readjusted itself, she was able to make out the outline of Luke, standing by the door.

"Did you get much work done?" Luke asked.

"A bit," Ellie sighed, "I'd saved it a few minutes before the power went out so I shouldn't have lost too much."

"How's it going?"

"It's confusing. It's like there's some kind of electrical vampire going around biting area grids and draining them one by one. Then by the time it's got round them all, the first ones are back up and running so it goes round again. It just keeps going round in circles."

"Any pattern?"

"Not that I've spotted so far, Jack was better at..." Ellie stopped and groaned, wincing as she looked up at Luke, "Sorry."

"It's okay," Luke muttered, his gaze fixed on an inanimate point in the darkness far across the room, "Do you really think this has got something to do with his disappearance?"

"It might do. The disappearances started before the power cuts, but they did seem to shoot up a lot when the cuts started."

"So where do we go from here?"

"We need to find out more about the other people who have disappeared. We could start with that friend of yours, Salene: when did you say was the last time she was seen?"

"Two days after we broke up."

"And you last saw her when?"

"The morning after we broke up."

"How did she seem? Did she say anything about where she was going?"

"She was asleep."

There was a pause. Luke kept his gaze fixed on the dark, distant point. Eventually Ellie's reply cut through the electricity free silence.

"Oh."

xxxx

Ebony slowly opened her eyes, then blinked. The light hurt them. She rubbed her fingers across her closed eyelids and tried to sit up. Immediately her head blasted a painful warning to her brain and she groaned, putting out a hand to support herself. She tried opening her eyes again, gingerly, and let them get used to the light. She was sitting on a sun-lounger, by the pool of a hotel. She looked around for clues. The old Horton and Bailey hotel, it seemed. Slightly run down now, and not one of the more expensive hotels in the city, but old-fashioned and sturdily built. It had a high wall all round the pool area, screening the bathers from the public view and claiming the pool solely for the use of the hotel patrons. Three of the walls were solid and unbroken by gates or doors. The only entrance or exit was through the fourth wall, which formed the wall of the hotel itself.

Getting shakily to her feet, which she now saw were encased in knee-high black boots under high-slit black leather trousers, Ebony stood and looked around her. There were no other people in sight, either inside the hotel or out of it. Putting one foot slowly in front of the other, Ebony made her way towards the hotel. As she neared the glass double doors, she caught sight of her reflection: in addition to the leather trousers she also seemed to be wearing a leather top, this time red leather with a red lace tying it at the single shoulder, and a band of shadow across her eyes. Rhinestones glittered in the reflection on either side of her nose, at the edges of her eyes, and there was a wide, red, stylised flame upon her forehead.

Ebony opened her red-painted lips and gasped, frowning slightly at her appearance, then pushed the doors open and strode into the hotel. It was deserted. Quietly, Ebony made her way down a corridor, aiming for the reception and main entrance on the far side of the hotel. Every door she tried was locked and she could hear no movement anywhere nearby.

Eventually she came to the end of the corridor, where it cut into another giving her a choice of going left or right. She picked right, following the route that would lead her away from the pool, then came to a bend in the corridor. Her steps slowed as she approached the turn and she sidled along the wall to peer around the corner into the silent gloom beyond. It seemed empty.

Ebony stepped around the corner. Suddenly she was face to face with a young man she had never seen before. He was tall and lean, a black lycra top stretching out across the muscles in his chest and arms and baggy black cargoes following the line of his leg to the floor.

"Ah, Ebony," Mega said, his voice completely devoid of any emotion other than impatience, "I was wondering when you would wake up and join us. Follow me: I have someone who wants to meet you."

xxxx

Jack pulled a face as a dim light filtered through his closed eyelids, waking him. He sat up and shook his head, then looked around. He was in a forest. All he could see in any direction were trees, shrubs, rocks, mossy, leaf-covered ground and a roughly Jack-shaped hole in the canopy above. He reached out for a nearby branch and pulled himself to his feet, wobbling a little at first, then leaning back against the tree. He glanced down at himself noting that he was now wearing khakis, a matching t-shirt and shirt and a bright blue jacket. There was a satchel lying on the ground nearby. Jack picked it up and rummaged through the contents. There was some water, which he took a gulp of, some bread and some fruit. He picked out an apple and bit into it, slinging the bag over his head and shoulder and surveying the surrounding area once more.

As he stood there, he heard a noise above him and looked up. Something fell through the tree and Jack darted aside, stumbling over a tree root in his haste and landing on his back once more. He sat up, rubbing the buised portion of his anatomy and looked at what had fallen. It was another bag. There was another rustle from above and a blue-haired girl dropped to the ground before him, landing in a crouch by her bag, then standing up, bag in hand.

The girl was about Jack's height, wearing a bright, cobalt blue t-shirt that matched her long, layered hair, a lime green waist corset and dark purple bell-bottoms. Jack's brow creased in confusion: who in their right mind would want to dye their hair a colour _that_ bright? It could be worse, he supposed, it could be dyed red or something!

"Wh-who are you?" Jack stammered, getting to his feet once more.

"I'm Jetta," replied the girl, "And you're trespassing."


	21. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

The motorbike came to a halt suddenly and Trudy giggled slightly as the momentum threw her forwards into the back of the young man in front of her. They were in the middle of an almost deserted village, in what appeared to be the main street, just outside what appeared to be a saloon. The sign over the entrance to the village had said "Liberty"; the sign over the entrance of the saloon proclaimed it to be "Ruby's". Trudy extracted herself from the motorbike and surveyed the building's wooden facade before turning back to her companion.

"Is this where you stay?" Trudy asked, cheerily.

"Sometimes," the young man replied, unfolding himself from the bike and removing his helmet to run a hand through short, dark hair, "It's one of my many stopping off points; one where I know I'm always welcome."

"Are there ones where you're not?" Trudy laughed.

The young man merely pulled a face and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh," Trudy replied, surprised, "Well, I guess I should at least know your name before I go walking into any strange bars with you. Even ones where you _are_ welcome."

"Slade," the young man replied, "And it's not really a bar, it's a saloon. Like a hotel, I guess. Ruby wouldn't be too happy to hear it referred to just as a 'bar'. She's a proud woman."

"You sound like you know her well."

"Well enough. I know it was her pride that brought her here: some guys tried to rob her and she fought back, ended up in a coma with head injuries."

Trudy blinked in surprise. Of course, she should have guessed that she would not be the only person here from the outside world, but for some reason she had just assumed that everyone else she met wouldmerely be a part of the programme. Clearly this wasn't the case.

"So how did you end up here?" Trudy asked as they walked towards the door of the saloon, "If you don't mind me asking, that is."

"Motorbike accident. Must be a year or so ago now, maybe more. Time seems to run differently in this place. Come on, lets get something to eat and drink: I'm starving!" Slade pushed open the doors of the saloon and led Trudy inside, ushering her over to a table, "wait here. I'll get us some food and then you can ask me as many questions as you like. Trust me, by now I'm used to it."

Trudy sat down and surveyed the interior of the saloon. The building seemed to be entirely wooden with a bar at one end of the room, tables and chairs in the centre and down one side and a pool table in the table-free corner. On one side of the bar a doorway led out to what Trudy presumed were the kitchens as that was where Slade had gone; on the other side, a flight of stairs led up to what Trudy guessed were the bedrooms. There were a surprising number of people in the saloon in view of how many Trudy had seen in the street outside. All of the saloons patrons seemed to be oddly and garishly dressed, just as Trudy herself was, with individual markings and styles. Occasionally she would see two or three people with one or two identical markings and note that they stuck together as a group. All of them seemed to be no more than twenty, or twenty one at the oldest.

There was a mirror hanging on the wall above the table Trudy was sitting at. She got up and scrutinised her own appearence. Her hair was short and appeared to be dark purple in coulour, but with some black low-lights and some brighter, blue-green streaks and extensions here and there. Her lips were covered in a purple gloss and her eyes were painted to match. On one cheek, just below her temple, was a delicate blue-green design and on the other was a small, lime green hand print, just like Brady would make on paper with her paints. Trudy smiled approvingly and looked down at her hands once more, admiring her nails. On the back of her left hand was a pentagram encased in a circle. Trudy frowned, wondering if there was some particular significance to this, separate, design. As she sat down again, Slade returned with two steaming bowls on a tray, along with two glasses of water.

"Time for lunch," he said, sitting down opposite Trudy an handing her the bowl, which appeared to contain some kind of stew, "not a terribly varied menu, but it's all we've got in this world."

"You speak as if it's your home."

"In a way it is, now. Before the accident, I would never have thought anything like this was possible, even from my little brother, but once I got hurt he started working on this virtual reality project with a friend of his and it's just got better and better."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah, Josh, or Mega as his friends call him, I believe. He's a computer genius. He worked his way through college years before other kids his age. He was just starting work on a PhD project when I was hurt, it was to do with VR, and he re-organised it to build this world for me. He had another guy working with him, one who had flown through college early too, and they started working on it together, using some of the undergraduates to work on the simpler stuff: programme writing and so on."

"So what happened? How were you hurt?"

"It was my own fault. I was supposed to be meeting him, but I'd stopped off to see someone and was running late. I took a bend too fast and lost control of the bike. There's a sizeable gap in my memory of what happened after that. When I next opened my eyes it was to this place. I was in one of the beds upstairs and Josh was sitting nearby, watching me. At first I thought it was some sort of private hospital or something, because I didn't seem to have any injuries or be in any pain, but then this other chap, Josh's friend, appeared in the corner of the room straight out of thin air. I thought I was going mad! Josh must have seen the look on my face because he glanced round at the guy, then told me to calm down. The guy came over and said a few things to Josh, then disappeared again. Josh paused for a moment, then turned back to me and began explaining everything.

He told me that I was in something called "Reality Space": a virtual world that he and his friend, Ramsey, had created. He said that I was the only one here just now, but that would change soon as they were hoping to use the project to help others like me. I asked him what he meant. He said that, on the outside world, I had been in a coma. He had put me in here, the virtual world he had been working on, to see if it would wake me. He said that there was more: apparently, my spine was snapped when I came off the bike. Even if I did wake up, I would be unable to move anything below my neck. Ramsey, or Ram as he called him, had just come to tell him that my vital signs had changed and it looked like the coma was lifting, like I was coming out of it. If I wanted, he said, they could try taking me out of reality space and we could see how bad the damage was. I said yes. He disappeared. A moment later he was lifting a helmet off my head and I was back in the real world. But the problem with the real world, of course, is all the reality and sure enough, I couldn't move. I was paralysed from the neck down. I think it was the first time in my life I actually cried.

Josh said that, if I wanted, I could go back into reality space. He said that there were others who would be joining me there soon, others like me, who had had accidents. If I wanted to, I could stay in reality space and rebuild my life there. He would visit sometimes and I could help the others who joined me here, whether they were staying long term or short."

"So you stayed?"

"There wasn't anything left for me in the real world. I couldn't move. I relied on tubes and other people to keep me alive. Josh was the only family I had left and he would be around anyway. This way, I get my life back, to some degree, and I get to help people in the process. Plus, in this world, there is much more freedom than in the real world. Out here especially. Money doesn't exist: you trade for what you need. It doesn't matter if you don't think you've got anything to trade with either, because just bringing in some news or gossip from the outside world can earn you quite a lot. People look after each other out here, perhaps because they're mostly in the same boat. Some of them will only be testers: kids earning a bit more money by trying out the system on a healthy body for a short while. Most have some kind of debilitating injusry or illness, like Ruby and myself... And you."

"How do you know I'm not one of the testers?"

Slade laughed.

"I have a bit more inside info on everyone, being Josh's brother and all. I can access certain background information that tells me who might, or might not, need a bit of a helping hand getting used to things. From what I gather, you could be here a while, but you should get better once your injuries heal."

"That's what the doctors say," Trudy shrugged, "but it worries me anyway."

"Don't worry," Slade replied, putting a comforting hand on Trudy's arm, "injuries like yours heal. All you need to do is make sure that you don't waste away while it's healing. This place takes care of that. It's better than physio!"

xxxx

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" Cloe groaned as she watched Ved lower himself down into the sewers.

"Don't be a wimp!" Ved called up, "It's not that bad, there's a walkway along the side and it's not exactly made for roller-blades and police cars!"

Cloe sighed and lowered herself and her pack into the darkness of the sewer. Ved reached up and pulled the cover back over their heads, blocking out the light, then pulled a torch out of his own pack. They had spent what seemed like an age foraging in the various warehouses and derelict buildings nearby, but had only put together two small bundles of items that may or may not prove to be any use. The patrols of "crazies", as they had decided to call them, had become more frequent, as though they were actually looking for Ved and Cloe, so Ved had suggested that they try a quieter, less obvious route through the city: the sewers.

"Now where do we go?" Cloe asked, shrugging.

"Let's try this way," Ved suggested, pointing his torch along the sewer passageway to their left, "I think it seems to be headed into the centre of the city."

"And we want to go there why?"

"If we can find the university, or something with a computer network, I may be able to get us out of here."

"You don't think he would have thought of that?"

"Probably, but do you have a better idea? Besides, we need other things: food, water, somewhere safe to sleep, something to fight with if we have to. We're more likely to find all that and more in the city centre where all the shops are, or were, by the look of things."

"Fine."

"If you have a better idea, I'm willing to listen!"

Cloe huffed and said nothing.

"Then let's go."


	22. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

"So... Um... Where are we, exactly?" Jack asked as he followed the blue-haired girl through the forest.

"You're not familiar with this forest then?" Jetta asked in return.

"Ah... No, I was just trying to make conversation. Really: I have nothing better to do than follow some weird, blue-haired woman I've never seen before around a forest I know like the back of my hand!" Jack quipped sarcastically.

"We're about ten miles out of the city and heading towards it. That okay?"

"What city?"

"The one you came from. The one we all came from, with a few exceptions."

"Nah, nah, nah, nah. Hang on a minute: I just fell straight through the canopy and landed on a hard, very hard, forest floor without breaking any bones from a height that I would have expected to kill me. There is no way that city is the same one that I just came from."

"Oh, it's the same city all right. It's a virtual representation with a few alterations that keep life from being boring, but it's essentially the same city."

"Huh," Jack fell quiet, looking thoughtful for a few moments as the two walked side by side, "You said 'the one we all came from': you mean there are others here?"

"Well of course there are. You didn't see any of them?"

"No."

"What was wrong with you?"

"I-I beg your pardon?" Jack stammered, a little indignantly.

"I got shot in a bank raid. The bullet got lodged in my brain stem. I'm alive, but only just. This place keeps me going until they can remove the bullet safely, although, even then, they're not sure I'll be able to do anything more than think by myself."

"Wh-what?"

"That's why I'm in here. That's what this is for. Don't you know this already? Oh, I see: they must have put you in here unconscious!"

"Oh, I was conscious, alright!"

"Then how come you don't know what the project does?"

"Well, I-I do, essentially. I sort of helped write it, you see. I just didn't realise I was actually creating what I was..." Jack waved his hands around, searching for the right word, "creating. You see?"

"Not really, no."

"Well, I was working on this... er... this project. At the university. It was a sort of mini version of a project some of the older students were working on. They were our tutors and they were giving us bits of their work to do to practice our programming skills on. They would tell us what they wanted the programme to do and we'd write it. It was all fairly mundane stuff at first, but it got gradually more... challenging... and we just went along with it. At first we all managed to keep up okay, but some of us started falling behind. Ved and I both managed to keep up, I think there were maybe one or two others too: a guy who called himself Stats and his mate, Wizard, and this other guy, Patch. Bit of a loner that one. Never really saw much of him. You haven't seen anyone else falling from the sky around here recently?"

"No, but that's not always how we arrive. So you're saying there's nothing wrong with you on the outside, in the real world, that is?"

"Nothing! Not as far as I know anyway. Not when they put me in here."

"They?"

"I don't know who. I know Ram had a hand in it somewhere, but when they dragged me out of that cellar, they shone a light in my eyes: I couldn't see anything."

"Cellar?"

"That's where they kept me before. I don't know how long I was there for. The only person I saw while I was there was Ram."

Jetta glared at Jack expectantly. Eventually she raised her eyebrow and nudged Jack.

"Hmm? What? Oh. I was just taking a break from studying in the library and someone knocked me out - chloroform or something - then I woke up in the pitch dark of the cellar. That's it."

"And what was so special about the programme you were writing?" Jetta asked in exasperation.

"I don't know," Jack muttered thoughtfully, "It was fairly standard stuff, but we all had something different to work on. Like lots of different pieces of a puzzle. If the others are here, and if I can find them, maybe we can put the pieces together."

xxxx

Ebony had followed Mega through the maze-like hallways of the hotel until they reached a small, claustrophobic room containing dozens of television monitors, each showing different views of city streets.

"My very own little control centre," Mega drawled, "I can see them, but they can't see me. Wait here. He'll be along shortly."

Ebony had waited, watching the goings on in the monitors as she did so. It seemed like madness had struck the city. Everywhere there were people, there was chaos. Even stranger: wherever she looked on the monitors, she never saw a single adult, merely children or young men and women of little more than her own age at most. Nobody in this world could be much more than 21 years old.

An hour passed, as far as Ebony could reckon time in a room with no clocks, then another. Eventually, in the flickering silence of the monitor room, she heard a sound from the corridors outside and turned to face the door. The sound grew closer: footsteps. They stopped. The door opened and a young man walked in wearing torn trousers and jacket with artificially blackened eyes and a chaotic red design across his face that made Ebony think for a moment that the skin of his haggard visage had been ripped and torn in some fight. His hair, a dirty blonde colour, was bound in ragged dreadlocks and crowned with a police cap that bore a pair of dark goggles over the brighter mid-part. It took Ebony quite a while to recognise him.

"Martin?" Ebony said, aghast, "Martin Fielding?"

"Martin is dead, Ebony," the young man replied, "Only Zoot remains."

"Zoot?" Ebony's face screwed up in confusion, "What are you talking about? What's going on here? I thought I read in the paper that you were dead?"

"Martin is dead," Zoot replied, "I am Zoot. Zoot lives on, with or without Martin's feeble body. This is my home now. This is my world. I am the control programme. I have the power. I rule the chaos. This is my world. And you are my queen."

xxxx

"When can we get out of this place? It stinks!" Cloe whispered as she followed Ved along the dark, damp sewer tunnels."

"Not long now," Ved replied, "We've got to be getting near the city centre soon. Once we're at the university, I can try and find the computer lab."

"It is going to be dark soon, if it isn't already, and I'm hungry!"

"What are you going to do? Nip out a manhole and dash over to Burger King?"

Cloe shook her head. An invisible gesture in the darkness, but her silence was understood by Ved nonetheless.

"I didn't think so," he said, stopping so suddenly that Cloe walked into the back of him, "Let's try this one: there's no light shining though from the street."

Ved turned on his torch again, the battery power of which he had been saving, and shined it up at a manhole cover above their heads.

"What's that?" Cloe said, as something glinted off the light of the torch along a nearby side tunnel.

Ved shone the torch alone the tunnel and saw the shimmering black bars of a gate.

"Let's find out," he said, turning and heading down the tunnel.

Cloe followed and watched as Ved tried the gate. At first it seemed locked and merely rattled stubbornly, but then, as Ved shone the torch over the edges of the gate, she saw the catch on the other side. He reached through and opened the gate. Cloe followed him though and waited as he carefully closed it behind them. In the light of the torch, they could see that they were now in a short, slightly higher tunnel that seemed to have a flight of steps disappearing into darkness at the far end.

"Come on," Ved said, taking Cloe's hand and leading her towards the steps.

After the first few, the steps seemed quite dry and free from the usual sewer sludge that now caked their boots. They turned one corner, then another, then met another gate similar to the first. Ved opened this the same way and they emerged into the dark basement of some unknown building. Ved shone the torch around again.

"Over there," he said, focussing the beam on another flight of steps.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Cloe asked, gripping his hand tightly.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Well... I guess not."

"Then let's see where we are."

Cloe followed Ved across the room and up the steps. There was a door at the top of the steps, which opened easily, then another short staircase. They ascended, turned a corner and stepped up the last few stairs into the hallway of a building Cloe knew well.

"I know this place!" Cloe exclaimed, "I used to come here all the time at weekends! It's Phoenix Mall!"


	23. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

"So," the young man looked up at Jack from his place by the fire, "what you're saying is: Denmark's a prison and something's rotten in the state of it."

"Huh?" Jack's brow creased.

"'For there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.' Hamlet, act 2, scene 2," the young man explained, rising to his feet. "You're saying that, for you at least, this place is a prison and whoever put you here wishes you ill. To us, however, who would not be alive without this place, it is the exact opposite."

"So, you're another... Person who had an accident?"

"Yes. In the real world, I was an English Literature student and an amateur actor. I was on stage one day and a piece of the light rigging collapsed. I took a direct blow to the head and, when I woke up, I found myself here."

"Hamlet?"

"Banquo."

The young man turned and stalked off in the direction of a huddled group of children and young adults.

"Don't mind Hawk: he gets like that," Jetta said, steering Jack to one side. "He'll talk to the others and then we'll see what they decide."

"Wh-who are they?"

"They're the Gaians. When they arrived, they all picked the forest as their point of origin. They can leave if they want to, of course: it's just a starting point."

"But they've all stayed?"

"No, some have left. Others have gone off and come back again. Some of us have made regular trips into the city, either to get something we need, or just to find out what's going on."

"What do you mean: things you need. Why would you need anything if it's all just VR? Surely you just need to think of whatever you want and it appears, right?"

"It's not quite that simple. If this program is going to succeed in fooling the brain, then the program has to be in charge, not the brain. That means we can't always have things our own way. The program is also designed to keep us fighting, so it's a challenge to survive here. We can't just walk into the city and book ourselves into a hotel: nothing like that exists here, at least not in the way it does in the real world. In this world, we're on our own. The city is populated only by those in the program. It has been dead, or dying, for years. When it first started, there was still food in the supermarkets and power in the houses, but now, after years in here, that's all gone. If we want food, we have to grow it, catch it or forage for it, or, if you're in the city, trade for it, steal it or fight for it."

"So there are people who chose the city as their starting point?"

"Oh yes: lots. Most, in fact. That's where they feel most at home, after all. At least they did before they got here. I don't know if they do now. There were five choices available when I joined. It might be different now, but I'm sure I'd know if it were: you can choose to start either in the forest, the city, the town, the farm or on the mountain."

Jack's brows creased as he tried to file all of these new pieces of information in his memory. He nodded as he started to understand the situation, then frowned again and looked sharply at Jetta. "What do you mean: you'd know? How do you know all this stuff?"

"I was one of the first: we have a bit more information on this place than the others. Each point of origin has a guardian: one of the first five, usually, who look after newcomers who start off there. I am the forest guardian."

Jack nodded again. "You said the guardians are 'usually' one of the first five," he said. "Who are the guardians and which ones aren't among the first five?"

Jetta sighed and leaned back against a tree. This one was full of questions. Ram had warned her he might be.

"The first five: the first five people to be placed into reality space. That's what we call this world. They were each given an area to watch over, both in terms of the people who originate there and in terms of watching out for program errors, although there haven't been many of those," Jetta slid down the tree until she was sitting on the ground beneath it. Jack found himself a comfortable lump of tree root and sat down beside her. "The very first person in here was Slade. He was given guardianship of Eagle Mountain. From there you can see all of the other four starting points, if you know where to look, so he was in charge of all of them at the very start. Then there was Grace. She was in charge of the city. Then Ruby: she's got the town, Liberty. Then Paul: he took on the farm. Then me. I got here.

Grace died, a while ago now, and the city was without a guardian for quite a while. There were enough people there, by that point, to make is self-sustaining, though, so there didn't seem to be any rush to replace her. Then things started going off course somewhat. We stopped going into the city. There's a new guardian there now, but I don't know who or what's going on there.

Paul disappeared as well, not that long ago in fact, but there hasn't been anyone at the farm since he went, so no guardian was ever reappointed. That's all the details I have on the guardians. Satisfied yet?"

xxxx

"And you haven't heard anything from either of them?" Ellie asked the bespectacled blonde boy whom she had backed into a corner.

"No, nothing," the boy replied, glancing round, "now will you let me go please!"

"Aw, come on," Ellie decided to turn on the charm, "you're not going to run away, are you! I thought we were getting on so well! I could really use a man of your... talents in this story."

"Hey, blondie: back off!"

Ellie looked round at the harsh shrill voice that had just sounded. Storming towards her was a curvy, pink-haired, pink-and-black-clad girl with a look on her face that said Ellie was most definitely not welcome.

"Get your own geek," the pink punk told the slighter, blonder girl, "This one's mine!"

"Dee, honey: Ellie was just asking some questions," the blonde boy replied, raising an arm either to welcome his saviour or prevent her beating Ellie to a pulp, or possibly both.

"Yeah, and it _really_ looked like it!" Dee shot back.

"About all this stuff that's been going on recently. You know: Jack and Ved disappearing? The power cuts? Everything?"

"Tell me about it! Even some of my kids have been disappearing! Not from my nursery, I have to admit!"

"Dee works in the university nursery," Patch explained. "She's great with kids."

Ellie grimaced, trying to make it look like a polite smile: working with kids was her idea of a nightmare!

"So you know people who've gone missing too," she said, trying to get the conversation back on track. "How many? And when? Did they all disappear around the same time, or were they more spread out? Have there been more disappearences since the blackouts started?"

"Well," Dee eyed Ellie suspiciously, "Now you come to mention it they do seem to be going quicker now. But, then, it's not just the kids: it's the adults too. Some of the nursery staff have gone AWOL recently."

"Could you give me a list? I need to find out if there's any sort of connection between them."

"I guess so," Dee paused and looked around her. "We should probably find somewhere more private though. Follow me."

xxxx

May woke up with a sore head.

It wasn't the first time she'd had a hangover, she thought, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. As she sat up in bed, however, she gradually became aware that her surroundings were anything but familiar. For a start, it was too quiet: it was never this quiet in the city. The next thing she noticed was the smell, or perhaps lack thereof. Wherever she was, it didn't smell like the city.

Well, that's one thing sorted, she thought: if it doesn't sound like the city, and it doesn't smell like the city, then that probably means it isn't the city.

So where was she?

Risking the searing pain of daylight, May opened her eyes. They stung a bit, but once she got used to the glare she could see that she was in a reasonably sized bedroom in some kind of old house. Maybe a farmhouse if it was out in the countryside.

May groaned: she hated the countryside.

"Are you alright?"

May looked around groggily, wondering where the sound had come from. Her eyes fixed on a red and blue blur in the corner. As her vision swam into focus, she saw that it was a red haired girl, about her own age, huddled in a long, blue coat. She looked as though she'd been crying.

"Who are you?" May asked.

"Salene," the girl replied. May nodded, then winced.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know," Salene shrugged, "but it looks like some kind of farm."

"Great!" May groaned again. "Any idea how we got here?"

"I know both how and why I ended up here," Salene said slowly. "I guess I know _how_ you got here, but I've no idea as to the _why_."

"Care to un-riddle that for me."

"Do you know about the virtual reality project going on at the university?"

"Well, yeah: I work there. In the university nursery, that is, not on the project. Why?"

"I answered an advert asking for volunteers to try out the system. They put me in, I ended up here. A few days later, you arrived."

"So what? We're in some mad virtual reality program?"

"Welcome to reality space!" Salene grinned sarcastically.

"Well, I didn't enter some trial voluntarily so somebody's messed up around here big time. How do I get out of here?"

"I wish I knew," Salene shrugged again. "I can't even get out of this room!"

"What?"

"I suppose I should tell you..."

"What?"

"Volunteers are not the only people in this program: some of the people who enter it are unconscious when they go in. That's why they've been working on it: as a way to bring people out of comas and communicate with them while their body heals. That's what Jay said, anyway."

"Jay?"

"The guy who got me to sign up for the trial. He said his girlfriend was one of the first people they put in here, but her body was too badly damaged and she died."

"Aw great: so now you're telling me that some guy's girlfriend's ghost is haunting my head?"

"Not exactly... Actually I don't know, she might still be around. Jay didn't seem to think she would be."

"And you trust him because?"

"He was nice: he really seemed to believe in what he was doing."

"Yeah, and so did Hitler and that still didn't make him one of the good guys."

Salene sniffed and pulled her knees closer.

"You didn't tell me your name," she said.

"May," May replied. "May Tennyson."

"Like the poet?"

"I hate poetry!"


	24. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

"So let me get this straight," Dee held up a pink-nailed hand and began checking off items on her fingers. "You turn up here and start dating this guy Jack, who's doing some weird programming stuff for his tutors. He catches you two-timing him with some other dude called Dal. Breaks up with you in the middle of the restaurant and proceeds to get you caught three-timing your original boyfriend, Luke." She checked off another finger. "Dal goes off and you don't hear from him again. Jack goes off and seeks solace in the arms of this scary chick Ebony, but swears they're just friends. Luke gets drunk and does something he later regrets with his friend from the restaurant." Another finger went down. "Later you say you watch Jack go into the computer labs, but he doesn't come out again. When you go to quiz Ebony about it, she's disappeared too. Now Luke has turned up again to say that his either very understanding or very desperate friend with the red hair has disappeared."

"That about sums it up with the disappearances, anyway," Ellie nodded. "Then you've got the power cuts to take into account. Something's causing them and, whatever it is, it's getting worse."

"And since the rate of disappearances is going up, it's logical to assume that the two are connected," Patch finished.

"But how can we prove it?" Ellie shrugged.

"If I was sure of having a power supply, I could maybe do a bit of hacking: see if police records and the power cuts match up."

"They won't," Dee cut in. "By the time people notice that others are missing, and then get round to reporting them, that is, if the police let them report it, there's no way of knowing what time they actually went missing at."

"True."

"You could find out if there was any other patterns though: like what sector is dragging the most power just before the cuts."

xxxx

"This is ridiculous!" Lex stormed past Tai San as she patiently held the curtain aside for him.

"What now?" Tai San asked.

"There's no food, no water, no nothing! And what's more: every time I step outside the door there's some bunch of weird looking kids running around chanting something!"

"They are chanting the word 'Zoot'. I believe it is a name."

"Does it matter what it is? This whole world is insane!"

"Jay did say it would be a challenge. Part of the program is designed to test your survival abilities. It stops the mind becoming bored."

"Exactly how long do we need to survive in here before we get out though?"

"I do not know. Lex, this is not what I expected either, but we are here and there is not a lot we can do about it except try to work out what is going on and how we can get home."

"Any suggestions on how we do that?"

Tai San raised an eyebrow.

"We could start by talking to some of the others who have found refuge here. That we have all found our way to this place cannot be simply coincidence: we share the same mark upon our hand. We know that not everyone has that mark: we do not see it on the hands of those we see outside this mall and it is not upon the hand of our young friend who claims to be Jay's younger brother."

"Good point! Let's see what that little brat has to say about big brother's new toy!"

Tai San sighed as she watched Lex storm out of the room again. She hurried after him, considering the various ways she would try to use to calm him down and persuade him that Ved was as trapped as they were. They were trapped, she knew that. No matter how many ways the computer might try to fool her brain, she knew that they had been in the program for far longer than they should have been. She didn't know how long, exactly, but from the information she had gathered from the others in the mall, she knew there were whole days involved.

xxxx

Ebony gazed out of the window of the hotel. Below her, on a balcony, Zoot was addressing his troops. A massive crowd gazed up at him with the bloodthirsty adoration of the violently unhinged. She let her gaze wander back into the room and around it. It was comfortably furnished. She had everything she needed. She caught a sight of her reflection in the vanity mirror across the room. The scarlet flame on her forehead looked like blood and she wondered at what price this luxury had been bought. Not only that, but why? Why should Zoot, Martin Fielding as was, choose to place her in this gilded cage? She cast her mind back to their high school dance. She had used him to get to his brother. Was that it? Was that why she was here?

Ebony sat down heavily on the bed and stared at the door, willing it to open. It was locked of course, with guards on the other side. It would only open to admit Zoot when he came to bring her food and tell her how great a queen she would make for him.

Surely there must be some other way out. A fail-safe. Jack had always talked about making sure any program like this had one. Jack. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he looking for her? Did he know where she was? Did he care?

xxxx

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jetta raised an eyebrow at Jack as he shouldered the satchel.

"I-I've got to see it for myself," Jack shrugged. "I helped write this place. If something's gone wrong, maybe I can fix it."

"Where will you go? You don't even know your way around."

Jack grinned sheepishly.

"I-I was kinda hoping you'd offer to come with me."

Jetta sighed. There it was. She'd known it was coming. She looked over to Hawk, who was placidly whittling away at a stick.

"You should go," he said. " I can look after things here. Jack's right: if something is wrong, we all need to know about it."

Jetta sighed, then nodded.

"Okay," she said, slowly getting to her feet. "Give me five minutes to pack, then we'll set off. Where do you want to go first?"

"Where's closest?" Jack asked.

"Probably the farm," murmured Hawk before Jetta could reply. "And if it's empty, then it gives you a place to spend the night before you continue to the city."

"S-Sounds good," Jack nodded and looked to Jetta for confirmation.

The blue-haired girl had been watching Hawk from the moment he mentioned the farm. Now she let her carefully fixed expression slide from one man to the other. She smiled at Jack.

"The farm sounds good. I'll just go get my stuff."

xxxx

Salene covered her ears against the dull thudding coming from the other side of the room.

"Give it a rest: it won't break!"

May paused in her assault of the door and glanced over her shoulder, still catching her breath.

"You don't know that," she hissed. "It's a door. It's just wood. It'll have to break eventually."

"No, it isn't: I keep telling you!" Salene groaned, sitting up on her bed. "This isn't the real world: it's a computer program! Real world rules don't apply! The window won't break or open and it's meant to be glass, so what makes you think the door it any different?"

"They get food in here somehow, whoever 'they' are!" May spat. "There must be some way into and out of here. We just have to find it."

"It's a computer program and 'they' are the people who wrote it. Whatever rules they have for themselves certainly don't have to apply to us."

"Well, then, what's the point, eh? Why go to all the trouble of locking us up in here? We have nothing in common. We know nothing about what's going on here. Neither of us can tell the other one what's expected or required to get out of here. And, no offence Red, but, if I'd had my choice of roomies, it wouldn't have been you!"

"Ditto!"

xxxx

"Come on Brady, put your shoes on."

Bray Fielding's face showed the strain of grief and frustration. His skin was pale and unshaven, his hair greasy, his eyes dull. He looked haggard and weary and had aged ten years in the past month.

"I want my mommy!" Brady cried tearfully.

"Mommy isn't here right now, Brady..."

Screams cut off Bray's soothing words as Brady burst into yet another flood of tears. Bray ran his hand through his lank, unwashed hair.

"Okay, honey, okay. We'll go up to the university and ask Jay if you can go see your Mommy. How does that sound."

The screaming abated to a pathetic, hiccuping sob. The child stuck a thumb in her mouth and nodded, watching her uncle with wide eyes. Bray watched the child warily, as if any wrong movement on his part would set off another screaming session. Yes, they would go and see Jay and maybe, just maybe, he would let them into the virtual world that Trudy had been immersed in. He had seen other young children there, one or two as young as Brady. He didn't know what tragedy had led them and their parents to the project, but they were definitely there and, if it worked for them, it would work for Brady. She would be able to see her mother again and he would, at least for a little while, have some shreds of peace.


	25. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

"There is no way I am walking all that way!" Patsy cried, folding her arms and refusing to move. "We'll just have to stay here for a while. Maybe we can borrow some transport or hitch a lift. They have cars here, don't they?"

"Uh, no: I don't think so!" KC rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I haven't seen any televisions or mobiles either!"

"Well there's no way we can walk all that way. It's miles!"

"You know, people did actually walk places before cars were invented!"

"They were used to it!"

KC shook his head and threw up his hands. Patsy raised an eyebrow and held her ground.

"Fine!" KC said, eventually. "Why don't you go back inside and watch the pool game. I'm going for a walk."

"Fine," said Patsy, turning back to the saloon.

"Fine," muttered KC, sticking his hands in his pockets and walking off in the opposite direction.

The town of Liberty was a small place, in fact it was more like a village or some place out of the wild west. KC stopped in his tracks and a smile spread across his face. This place was like a wild west settlement. It was quite a distance from anywhere, not just the city. That meant there would have to be some form of transport, just not the kind they were used to.

He looked around, casting his eyes over each of the buildings in turn, looking for one that matched his requirements. Finally, he saw it. Right down the end of the road. Hurrying forward, he made his way to the tall wooden building and glanced inside. There were two horses grazing peacefully from a manger. KC chuckled and turned back to the saloon. Patsy might not like the idea of riding all that way, but she was enough of a princess to see the fun in being swept away on horseback.

xxxx

"Give me one good reason why I should help you, Ellie."

"It's not for me, Dal, it's for all the people who have disappeared!" Ellie stuck a foot into the doorway before Dal had a chance to react. "There's a group of us trying to find out what's happened. We need more people, though, to help."

"And I suppose this guy Jack is one of your 'group'?"

"No," said Ellie, shaking her head. "No, he's one of the ones who's disappeared. Him and Ebony."

"Ebony?" Amber said, walking up to stand behind Dal in the doorway. "Ebony Hayes?"

"Yeah, that's her," Ellie nodded, glad to have someone take an interest in her cause. "Do you know her?"

"Yes, I do: she's in my class," said Amber, easing Dal to one side. "I thought I hadn't seen her for a while."

"She's not the only one: there are loads of university students and employees who have mysteriously vanished. We think it's linked to the power cuts, but the police say they have nothing to go on and we don't have enough people to cover the groundwork."

"Who exactly is 'we'?" Dal asked.

"So far, just me, Dee, Patch and Luke."

"Luke as in your boyfriend Luke?"

"Yes," Ellie swallowed nervously. "A friend of his has disappeared too: her name's Salene. She worked... Um... She worked in that restaurant... You know the one..."

"The one where I found out you were seeing two other guys, yeah, I remember it!" Dal cut her off sharply.

"So will you help?" Ellie asked, trying to get away from the topic of old wounds.

"Yes, we'll help," said Amber.

"Great," said Ellie. "We're meeting up at the farm tonight. Eight o'clock. Alice says she'll make sandwiches but she doesn't have time to cook a proper meal for us, so eat before you leave."

"We will," Amber nodded as Ellie retreated. "We'll see you then."

"What did you have to go and do that for?" Dal cried once Amber had closed the door.

"What?"

"Say we'll help! I don't want anything to do with her!"

"Dal, something's going on. People are in trouble and we have the opportunity to help them, or at least help find out what happened to them and stop it happening to anyone else. We have a moral duty to take that chance and do our best with it, regardless of who we're working with."

"Yeah, right! And it has nothing to do with the fact that you've been trying to get me out of the house for the past week!"

"Nothing at all!"

xxxx

"Is it much further?" Jack asked, keeping his tone as light as possible.

"A little bit," replied Jetta. "But we should be there before the light starts to fail."

"A-and there was no other way to get here but walk?"

"None whatsoever. We don't have any mechanical transport and the horses are out with our traders."

"So, so there are animals here?"

"A farm would be a boring place without them. So would a forest."

"True, true."

"And we do still feel hunger and thirst here. This place is as akin to the real world as its creators could make it."

"Yeah, I know," Jack muttered. "I was one, remember. I-if only for a small part of the process."

"So what did they tell you about the program you were writing?"

Jack winced and pulled a face. The explanation he had been given at the time sounded rather more than just far-fetched in the cold light of the truth.

"They said nothing was as complex as the human mind," he said. "We were to build a program that could mimic the mind in as many ways as possible. Only the best would be considered for use in the project."

"But the project had been running for a long time before you came along. You must have added something new. Any idea what it was?"

Jack shook his head.

"We all had our own little bits. I wrote about the mall my Dad owns a store in. Programmed it to have hidden supplies and doors and security and all the things you might want if you had to live there in a world like this."

"So they described this world to you then?"

"N-not as such, no. They told us to imagine we were the only survivors in a major, world-wide disaster and create a place to live. One that, if we were to put ourselves into the program, we could manipulate and survive in."

"But surely, then, if you programmed this mall, you would have started out there, not the forest."

"I don't know: I didn't exactly choose to be put in here. I'm guessing I don't get to choose where I start out."

"Or maybe, they just didn't use yours. Maybe it just isn't there for you to start out from."

"I-it's possible," Jack conceded, reluctantly. "I hope not though!"

"Why?" Jetta laughed. "Too much of a dent in your ego?"

"N-no, i-it's not that," Jack stammered. "I-it's just... I-it's just that's kinda where I'm headed for!"

xxxx

Ved gulped down the meagre portion of creamed rice that Tai San had shared out between them. Lex and he would have to go out and try to find more food soon. Even with only the four of them there, their supplies were beginning to run seriously low. Everyone was tired, hungry and bad-tempered and Lex was worse than anyone! They had spent the past day exploring the mall and working out where everything was. So far they had discovered a bizarre contraption that produced clean water from somewhere, although none of the taps seemed to be connected to it, limited food and electricity and an old Game Boy which usually seemed to be surgically attached to Lex.

"Maybe we should try looking around that big old hotel?" Ved suggested.

"Have you seen the crazies round there, kid?" Lex replied sharply.

"They must be there for a reason."

"Yeah to beat up anyone who goes anywhere near them!"

"We have to find more food!"

"Agreed! Just not there!"

"Fine! You make a suggestion!"

"I'm thinking!"

"I wondered what the noise was!"

xxxx

Trudy surveyed the room with an expression of delight.

"It ain't much, but it's home," said a blonde haired girl behind her. Her name was Ruby, owner of the saloon, and Slade had persuaded her to let Trudy spend a night or two in one of her many rooms.

"It's wonderful!" Trudy replied.

"It serves its purpose, brings in a few chickens, the occasional can of petrol or bottle of booze."

"I'm just sorry I don't have any of those to give you in return," Trudy laughed. "This is a palace compared to the tiny flat we used to have, and it's certainly better than a hospital bed!"

"We?" Ruby tilted her head to one side.

"Me, my husband Martin..." Trudy paused. "My little girl, Brady..."

"Maybe he'll bring her to see you sometime," said Ruby, smiling gently.

"Oh, no," said Trudy, shaking her head. "He can't. He's dead."

"I'm so sorry. Were you both in an accident or something?"

Trudy grimaced awkwardly.

"Something like that," she said, turning away to look out of the window.

"Who's looking after your little girl now then? Your family?"

"His, actually," Trudy replied without turning round. "His brother, Bray. He's her godfather and her only uncle. He dotes on her. She'll be well looked after."

"Maybe he'll bring her then," Ruby stepped forward and put her hand on Trudy's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Trudy. I didn't mean to upset you. If you ever want to talk about it, though: you know where I am."

Forcing herself to smile a little, Trudy nodded. She felt the hand leave her shoulder and listened as Ruby's footsteps receded across the room and out of the door. Only once the door had clicked shut behind the young landlady, and Trudy could no longer hear her footsteps, did she let the tears burst forth. The comfort and warmth of the soft bed was lost on her as she curled up into a ball and cried herself to sleep.


	26. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

"Trouble sleeping, sister mine?" Java's voice oozed through air from some untraceable speaker system. Ebony spun round in a vain attempt to locate the source. Tired and confused, she dropped to her knees and clamped her hands over her ears. The voice sounded again. "Oh, I'm real, Ebony. As real as you are. The only difference is I'm here in the real world, speaking to you, stuck in a virtual one. Speaking of virtual worlds, how do you like your new accommodation?"

The hotel bedroom in which Ebony had been locked came complete with its own plasma screen television, mounted high on a wall. It now flickered into life, showing pictures of the chaotic streets outside the hotel.

"I understand that Zoot's queen hasn't quite had the chance to get out and about in her new kingdom," Java continued. "Perhaps this will give you an idea what it's like out there. It's chaos, Ebony. But within these walls are power. Always the two in an endless balance. Power and chaos. The double edged sword with which we rule this world!"

"This place isn't real!" Ebony shouted at the empty air. "Jack created this world! Where is he?"

The sound of Java's laughter filled the room, echoing until Ebony had to clamp her hands over her ears again to block out some of the noise. Abruptly, the sound stopped and the television screen went blank.

"I think you put a little too much faith in your new toy's abilities, sister dear," Java drawled, the traces of amusement still apparent in her honeyed tones. "Jack didn't create this world: Ram did, along with Mega. Jay helped a little, but mainly in organising the distribution of smaller projects to your little geek and his friends. Jack wrote a tiny fraction of this world. Just one single building. He can't help you: he's as trapped as you are. He just doesn't know it yet!"

Again, the screen on the wall flickered into life. This time, however, it showed a more sedate picture: the interior of a barn, piled high with hay. Two figures lay sleeping in the hay. One female, with bright blue hair reflecting the pale light of dawn, the other male, with bright red hair contrasting sharply with the bright blue jacket pulled over him. Ebony stepped closer, frowning. As if reading her mind, the picture zoomed in on the sleeping redhead. It was Jack. Ebony caught her breath and stepped back, the picture zooming out again as she did so. She felt sick, her insides tying themselves in knots at the realisation that she was on her own. Her worry for herself faded, though, when she saw an arm reach out and wake the blue haired girl by Jack's side.

"You have done well, Jetta," said a voice. "He truly suspects nothing?"

The picture changed to show Jetta standing, quite calmly, talking to a blonde haired, white robed man surrounded by blue robed and hooded figures. The hooded acolytes were carrying spears.

"He suspects many things, Guardian," Jetta was saying, keeping her voice low. "But he suspects no harm from myself or the farm. He has no knowledge of your existence. He only wishes to get to the city to try and escape."

"There is no escape from the mighty Zoot," the Guardian intoned fervently. "Now hurry: retake your place. He must not suspect you when we wake him. You know your part."

"I do, Guardian."

Ebony watched with mounting fear as Jetta returned to her place by Jack's side. At a sharp signal from the Guardian, the blue clothed acolytes stepped forward. With almost no sound, they surrounded the two 'captives' turning their spears to point directly at both figures. Ebony noted they were considerably closer to Jack than Jetta. If he sat up too suddenly now, it might be the last thing he did. The Guardian stepped closer to the ring of guards and raised his arms.

"In the name of the might Zoot," he cried, loudly, "Awake!"

xxxx

"Quick: over here!"

Bray turned in the direction of the voice and bolted for the large rock it had come from. He put Brady down, keeping a tight hold on her in case she ran off and praying that she wouldn't cry out. The child stared up at him in silence with terrified eyes. Bray put a finger to his lips, hoping she would understand the need for quiet now, and looked round at his saviour. The young man at his side looked about the same age as him, if anything only slightly younger. He had a cheerful face and a ridiculous hat.

"They're gone," the young man said presently. He turned and sat down on the sand, his back to the rock.

"Thank you," said Bray, keeping his voice low in case the crazies that had been chasing him were still within earshot. "My name's Bray. This is my niece, Brady. We're trying to find her mother. Who are you?"

"Ah," said the young man. "I thought it must be something like that. Me: I'm just here for the adventure."

"Adventure? You mean you knew it would be like this?"

"Not entirely. I knew what kind of world I was testing out though."

"So you're a tester? Not ill?"

"No, I'm fine, back in the real world. Or at least I was last time I was there!"

"How long have you been here?"

The young man's eyes unfocused for a moment while he thought back, mentally counting.

"I'm not sure," he said eventually. "It's hard to keep track out here, especially when you're travelling round and eating and sleeping at odd hours. Longer than I should have been, though. The only problem is I can't quite seem to find my way out."

"So you've travelled in this world? What's it like? Is everything just like this?"

"No, not everything. There are some places that are better: crazy person free. Others, like the city, are much worse."

"The city? Is it far? Can you take me there?"

"Are you mad, Bray? Didn't you hear what I just said? It's worse than here! You'd be better off heading for the country."

"I have to find Trudy: Brady's mother. You haven't heard anything of her have you?"

"No, nothing, but..."

"Then I have to get to the city. Find somewhere she'd know. Somewhere she'd feel safe. Maybe if I do, I'll find her."

The young man looked at Bray for a long time, weighing up the possibilities and consequences. Eventually, he sighed.

"Fine," he said, looking over the rock and getting to his feet. "I'll take you. But you have to do exactly as I tell you. I know this world much better than you do remember!"

Bray got up and hoisted the still silent Brady onto his shoulder.

"Thanks," he said, holding out his free hand to the young man. "I owe you. What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't," the young man smiled, taking Bray's hand and shaking it firmly. "My name's Sasha."

xxxx

"Tell me again why we appear to be meeting in a conference hall?" Dal whispered to Amber as they made their way through the uneasily quiet city streets.

"Because Ellie's recruitment drive seems to be working and she's rounded up 'a few other people who might be able to help', as she said," Amber sighed.

"Let's not make any judgements before we get there," said Jewel. "Ellie seems to be skilled at getting whatever she wants."

"I'll say!" Dal muttered sulkily.

The conference room was the smallest in Luke's hotel. He had paid for its use himself and it was already half full when Amber, Dal and Jewel arrived. Amber cast a glance around. Ellie was seated at the top of the long table with Luke on one side of her, obvious in his identity by the daggers Dal was glaring in his direction, and a pink haired woman and blonde haired man on her other side. They matched the descriptions of Dee and Patch, Ellie's latest accomplices.

Working round the table Amber picked out a tall, philosophical looking young man, maybe a little older than the others, with black dreadlocked hair. Next to him sat a nervous man of about the same age and height, but broader build and with a shaven head. They both wore similar uniforms. A slim built blonde boy, younger than any of the others sat opposite them, watching Ellie's conversation with Patch and Dee closely. A couple of seats down from him sat a solemn young woman of about Amber's own age, whose tumbling black curls obscured half her face.

Amber took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Ellie. Dal and Jewel seated themselves on either side of her. Hearing them sit down, Ellie looked round. She cast a glance around the room and stood up.

"I think we all know why we're here," Ellie began. "Perhaps we'd better start by stating our names and those of the people we are looking for."

As she finished speaking the door behind Amber opened and closed again. Everyone turned to look at the newcomer: a tall, dark skinned young woman who met their eyes nervously.

"Since you're all looking my way perhaps I'd better start," she said. "My name's Siva, and I'm here to try and find my little sister."


	27. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

"There: completely swarming with crazies," said Lex. "Just like I said it would be."

"We still had to try," said Ved. "Besides, it doesn't hurt to get a better look at them."

"Just so long as they don't get a better look at us!"

The hotel in front of Ved and Lex boasted four guards that were visible outside the doors and the suggestion of many more within. Occasional crazies had entered and left the building, skating off in small groups or large packs or returning with supplies and, sometimes, prisoners. As the two men watched, the activity around the entrance to the hotel increased suddenly. Instinctively, Lex ducked further down behind the burnt out car they were hiding behind, grabbing Ved's shoulder to drag him out of sight.

"I don't like this," hissed Lex. "We've got what we came for: now it's time to leave!"

"We can't: not now!" Ved whispered back. "They'd see us. Besides: something's obviously going on. We might as well stay and see what it is."

"We should be trying to find out where our next meal is coming from!"

"We should be finding out what we're up against!"

The whispered argument was brought to a sudden close by a surge in the noise from the hotel. Carefully, Ved and Lex edged their eyes above the side of the car, peering through the glass-free windows. As they watched, a much more regiments group of crazies emerged from the hotel. Behind them walked a tall young man with red war paint over his face, dreadlocks in his blond hair and unnaturally pale eyes. For all that these did to disguise the newcomer, Lex still felt a sick pang of recognition shoot through him.

"No," he said, shaking his head as if doing so would banish the image in his memory. "No, it can't be! It can't be him: he's dead!"

"Who?" Ved asked. "Who are you talking about?"

"We've got to get out of here," Lex hissed, dragging Ved down below the line of the car once more and missing the petite female figure being dragged along behind Zoot and shoved roughly into the police car. "That guy. The one they were all crowding round. I know him."

"What do you mean?" Ved hissed back. "The crazies: they're not real. They're computer generated. An obstacle for everyone in here to work around."

"Oh, I don't know what you were told, but I'm betting they're real enough. Maybe they're not alive in the outside world, but they are in here. That guy though: he's real. As real as we are. The only problem is: he's dead. I know for a fact he's dead. And how do I know? Because I killed him!"

xxxx

"Jack?"

Jack groaned. His head ached. His mouth was dry. His stomach was complaining. His entire body felt like it was covered in bruises. All he wanted to do right now was sleep, then wake up once this whole nightmare was over. Somebody wasn't going to let him do that.

"What is it?" Jack mumbled, refusing to move from the semi-comfortable pile of straw he was lying on.

"I want to know more about the project."

"You already know more than I do, Jetta."

"But we don't have the same information," Jetta persisted. "If I tell you everything I know and you tell me everything you know, maybe we can work something out."

"Fine," Jack groaned, wincing as he dragged himself into a sitting position. If there had been any great deal of light reaching into their prison, he would have shielded his eyes against it. As things were, he had to strain them to make out where Jetta was. "You go first."

"You know most of my side already," replied Jetta. "Why don't we start with this mall you programmed..."

xxxx

"All I know is that he was supposed to be bringing this niece of his in to work last Thursday and neither of them showed up," Danni, the young woman with the mass of black curls, was telling the group. "There was no phone call to say they weren't coming. I tried calling his home phone and his mobile, but I got no answer. When he didn't answer his mobile I thought something might have happened, so I checked the hospital. All they could tell me was that his sister-in-law had been checked out of there and into this project thing going on at the university. I tried to find out if he'd gone there to visit her, but they weren't exactly forthcoming with information."

"Do you have a photograph?" Siva asked.

Danni nodded briefly and reached into a file she had brought with her. Her hand emerged with a smaller, plastic wallet. She slid the wallet across the table to Siva, who had sat down opposite Danni and next to the nervous, uniformed man whose name had turned out to be Ryan. Siva opened the wallet and tipped out a few photographs of varying sizes.

"That's him," said Danni as Siva lifted the top one off the small pile. "That's taken from his file at work. The next one is Bray again, but with his niece, Brady. That was taken last Christmas: he took her sledging. The last one is his brother's wedding photograph..." Danni paused as she saw Siva's face suddenly change when she saw the last photo. "Bray was his brother's best man. That's Martin, his brother, in the centre of the picture with Trudy, his wife, on one side and Bray on the other. Trudy's holding Brady: she would have been about eighteen months at the time."

Siva stared at the picture for a long time. Suddenly she seemed to become aware of the heavy silence that had fallen around them and she thrust the photos back into their wallet, sending the wallet skidding back across the table to Danni.

"Yes, I've seen them," she said, not meeting Danni's eyes. "You're man Bray brought his niece to the centre to see her mother. I was just going off shift at the time. My older sister, Java, took them through. I left before they came out again. I haven't seen them since."

"So this Trudy is hooked up to the project?" Ellie asked from the far end of the table.

"Yes, she is," Siva nodded.

"Okay, let's work out way through the list, then," said Ellie, nodding to Dee, who was trying to keep track of the missing people on an old A3 flip chart. The chart was flipped back to the start and Ellie went through the list from the top. "So we start with Jack, but all we really know is that he was last seen in the computer labs. He got up and left there, leaving the stuff he was working on, so he was expecting to come back, and hasn't been seen since. Next, we have Ebony. She was last seen at the university the same day that Jack disappeared, but we believe she went back to her flat. They had both been working in the computer labs together during class time, but were arguing over something and, at the end of the class, he stayed and she left. She was spotted in the cafeteria at lunch time, then seen to head off in the direction of her flat. She hasn't been seen since."

"So how do we know she made it home?" Amber cut in.

"It's a secure entry block," Ellie replied, with the matter-of-fact air of a true investigative journalist. "Their security system recognises keys electronically and keeps a log. As far as we know there was only one key for Ebony's flat and she let herself in with it at half past two in the afternoon of the day she and Jack disappeared."

"How do we know it wasn't Jack who let himself in?" Amber persisted. "You did say they were living together."

"We don't," Ellie shrugged, looking less confident. " But Jack wouldn't have left the stuff he was working on in the labs and gone back to the flat. It's a ten minute walk each way. Besides, the time Ebony was seen heading that way matches up with that arrival time. There's no concrete evidence but logically that's the most likely scenario."

Amber pulled a face and nodded in agreement.

"Anyway," Ellie continued. "Next we have Salene. She's a barmaid in a restaurant in the city centre. She disappeared around the same time as Ebony and Jack, but we can't be more exact than that. Her sister says she was talking about volunteering to be a test subject for one of the university projects, just to earn a bit more cash, but we don't know which one or if she was definitely going to do it. We do know, however, that the project Jack was involved with was offering more money than usual to testers, so it's highly likely she picked that one, if money was her only motive.

"Then there's May: one of the university crèche workers. She disappeared a few days later. We KNOW she was going to try out the project. She left work early the day she disappeared to go and fit in some time as a tester before a baby-sitting appointment later that evening. She was seen entering the project centre okay, but she never made it to her baby-sitting job.

"The next two also seem to pair up," Ellie continued, barely pausing for breath. "Ved, from Patch and Jack's computer class disappears around the same time as Cloe: a maid from the hotel Trudy Fielding was staying in before her accident, who often went out with Trudy and her bodyguard, Pride. Pride's colleague, Lex, who was looking after Trudy at the time of the accident, disappeared soon afterward, along with Tai San, who is... Now let me get this right... She was the best friend and colleague of Zandra who was Ryan's, I'm sorry Ryan, Ryan's wife who died very recently. Ryan is Lex's best friend and, for that matter, boss as he owns the company Pride and Lex both work for. They were hired to protect Trudy Fielding from her abusive husband, who is also now dead after attacking Mrs Fielding in the hotel and being attacked in return by Lex. The Fieldings' daughter, Brady was given into the custody of her uncle, Bray and both she and Bray have now, most recently, disappeared," Ellie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "That's us so far. Is anyone else starting to get confused?"

A low, uncertain ripple of nervous laughter ran through the small group.

"That brings me to the last two people to have disappeared," Ellie began again. She raised a hand in the direction of the blonde haired young man sitting next to Danni. "Paul here got in touch with me about his sister, Patsy. Paul is deaf and, although he can lip read us and understand us perfectly, his speech can sometimes be difficult to make out, so I'll fill you in on the details. Patsy works at a local supermarket and, about a week ago, she and a colleague both headed off from work to try out the project. They haven't been seen since. Her colleague's name is KC and he hadn't been working at the supermarket for long, but apparently Patsy had developed quite a crush on him and followed him everywhere. Both were last seen going into the project centre and haven't been seen since. The staff at the project claim that both left the centre unharmed later that evening, but they only have each other to back them up on this as there are no cameras around that area of the campus. The staff at the project seem to be surrounding themselves in a veil of secrecy, but we do, for once, have an inside view on the project. We have Paul.

"Paul himself was one of the first test subjects for the project. It was thought that the virtual reality setting might allow him to hear and therefore help with his speech. Unfortunately it didn't and Paul left the project soon after. While he was there, though, he gained a lot of information about how the main program of the project works. He found out that the world people are put into is a very realistic version of this one, but with some major differences. For starters, there is nobody over the age of about twenty. Everyone is in their teens or younger. Secondly, the world is in chaos. There is no electricity, no government, no shops, nothing. Everyone is living hand to mouth and fighting for survival. This is allegedly deliberate. It's supposed to activate the body's own fight or flight responses and keep the body and mind active while in the program. The only problem is: it's almost too realistic. If you are hungry in the real world, you're hungry there and you have to find your food before you can eat it! If you're thirsty, you can't just think of a bottle of water and have it appear in your hand, you have to go out and look. If you get into a fight, the punches really hurt. And if you get yourself killed in there..." Ellie paused and held out her hands.

"You get yourself killed full stop," Amber finished.


	28. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

"Do you have any idea where you're going?" Patsy asked breezily over KC's shoulder.

"No, but we sure would get there a lot faster if I got the chance to breathe occasionally!"

Patsy loosened her hold around KC's waist.

"I just don't want to fall off," she said. "I've never driven a horse before."

"Ridden," KC corrected wearily. "You've never ridden a horse before."

"That's what I said, wasn't it?"

KC rolled his eyes, thankful that, for once, Patsy couldn't see his expression. He looked around the city streets. The destruction and devastation that had been visited upon them had certainly made them unfamiliar at first, but now he was starting to recognise his surroundings. In the distance, a police siren sounded. They had heard it before, but never so close as now. Even worse: the siren seemed to be getting closer.

"Quick, we've got to find somewhere to hide," KC told Patsy, his glance darting left and right. "Can you see anywhere?"

"Not big enough for a horse!" Patsy cried, her grasp on KC tightening again as fear set in.

"Look, over there!" KC gasped, turning the horse's head in the direction of a large opening. "It's a car park!"

"Won't the police car just follow us in?" Patsy shrugged as the horse made its way obediently to the darkened entrance.

"Not if it doesn't know we're here!" KC replied as they disappeared into the gloom.

xxxx

"And that's it?" Jetta asked, wiping a damp rag over the cuts and bruises on Jack's face. "That's everything you were working on before you were taken?"

"Pretty much," Jack winced. "Do you have to do that? I mean, they haven't programmed in virtual infections have they? It's all just an illusion, right?"

"Don't bet on it, Jack. This illusion is real enough. I've seen wounds get infected here. I've seen people die from those infections."

"Seriously?" Jack's brow creased as he looked up at Jetta.

"Seriously," Jetta nodded, her eyes focussed on the rag. "I've seen people die from starvation, childbirth, poisoning, injury, even murder! Once you're in it, this world is just as real as the, well, real one!"

"Childbirth?" Jack tried to sit up and winced again. His ribs were complaining.

"Yes, why?"

"H-how can someone give birth in a computer program?"

"You're the expert, not me," Jetta shrugged. "Sometimes they're pregnant when they arrive. Sometimes they're not."

"A-and the child survives?"

"Most of the time. Not always. But that is what you would expect in a world like this one."

"N-no, it isn't!" Jack succeeded in pushing himself upright this time. "A world like this is fake. It's not real! Every person in here is the result of a computer program linking their brain to this virtual world. H-how can a baby be born in this world and survive? They would have to link it up to the system almost as soon as it was born! A-and what about the ones who get pregnant once they're IN the program? Th-that's just not possible! Not unless someone is massively breaking rules outside! Either that, or, or... I don't know. The only other way would be to create an individual artificial intelligence for every child born within the virtual world. Do you have any idea how long that would take? How much creativity and variation? You couldn't be sure you would have true individuals every time unless you..."

Jetta looked directly at Jack for the first time since the start of their conversation. He had stopped so abruptly it was almost as though he had been frozen. Even the expression on his face was immobile, staring off at some point in the distance. His hand was raised in mid-gesticulation.

"That's it," he breathed, his eyes glazing over in horror and realisation. "They're programs. Artificial intelligence programs. I-I remember now. It was ages ago. A sort of test to get into the course. We all had to create an artificially intelligent individual, capable of learning like a child would. I thought it was a weird idea. Kind of, kind of creepy. You know?"

"And you wrote one of these... programs?" Jetta asked, watching Jack's face display a vivid array of emotions.

In reply, Jack pulled a face that was halfway between a grin and a frown. He shrugged, making a noncommittal noise.

"W-we, we don't know if they used it," he stuttered, more trying to convince himself than Jetta.

"If you got into the course, it's likely that they did," Jetta reached up and turned Jack's face towards her. It took him a moment to focus on her. "It's possible they used all of the programs, Jack. The babies that died, well: they're the programs that failed. It would certainly explain the randomness of the infant deaths I've seen. But if that is the case, that means that your program is in here. That means the mall isn't the only thing in here you may have the upper hand with."

"If my artificial intelligence program is in here," Jack said, very slowly, "we really don't want to bump into it!"

xxxx

Ebony stood by his side. Martin's side. Zoot's side. She held on to the sides of the police car as tightly as she was trying to hold on to some sense of reality in this nightmare realm. Jack was stuck here too, and in danger, but there was no way she could get to him or warn him. She could only sit back and watch as madness surrounded and enveloped them both.

xxxx

"That's all I know, so far," Siva said, looking warily around the table. "I just help out there sometimes, looking after the patients, or, well, 'players' as Mega and Java call them."

"And this Mega: he's in charge?" Amber asked.

"Not entirely: the guy he created the virtual world with, Ram: he's still around and he seems more in charge than Mega. Although..."

"Yes?"

"Sometimes it seems like Mega has his own plans. A secondary purpose running through the whole project that nobody knows about. Ram is creepy: a slime ball with a IQ that's way higher than he deserves and an ego twice as large! Mega though? Mega is scary. You can't read him. He's completely... I don't know. Cold, I guess. You never know what he's thinking, or how far he'll go to get what he wants."

Raised eyebrows and worried glances were exchanged around the table. A quiet murmur of whispering followed the shift in feeling. Eventually Luke spoke.

"I have a suggestion," he said, drawing all eyes towards him. "I've found an apartment in the city centre. I'll be staying there indefinitely. It's quite large and, if this is as many people as we can raise to our cause, then we would all fit in there easily, with a couple of extra chairs perhaps. I will take the information we've gathered so far and set it up in my study. It's private and we don't have to worry about maids coming in to clean it, like we would here."

"You mean like an incident room?" Ellie asked.

"Exactly," Luke nodded. "It would be a great base for us."

"Okay, but how does that help us work out what to do next?" Danni shrugged.

"I don't think there is much that we can do just now," said Amber. "We don't have enough information. We don't even know if our friends are actually a part of the program."

"I could try and find out," Siva offered. "I don't know how, or what chance I have, but I could try."

Amber and Danni exchanged a glance. Danni nodded thoughtfully.

"Okay," she said. "How about this. Siva checks out the project from the inside: tries to find out if any of the people we've mentioned here tonight did actually try it out and when, if at all, they left. There should be some sort of log books for that sort of thing. Then we all meet tomorrow at Luke's apartment to find out what she's discovered, if anything. If we've still got nowhere, though, then I think we need to seriously consider the possibility that we'll have to send someone in undercover."

"Into the project?" Dal frowned. "Isn't that what Siva's doing now?"

"No Dal," said Jewel quietly. "I believe Danni means that we should send someone in as a test subject, not a helper. That we should send them right in, into the virtual world."


	29. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

Ebony watched silently from the police car as, at a command from Zoot, the foot soldiers skated away from the side of the car and after an unfortunate local they had spotted. All around her she saw chaos, ruled over by brutish power. Power and chaos! The mantra she heard Zoot chanting over and over again. The reply he received from his followers. Power and chaos! The last time he had stopped the car he had turned to her for a reply. Waiting until she raised her arms above her head and copied him. Power and chaos! At every street corner. Behind every door. Power and chaos! In every face that looked at them, in fear or in awe. Power and chaos! Filling her mind and taking over her reason. Power and chaos!

Power and chaos!

xxxx

"What the...!" Lex's expletive was cut off by a snort from the horse he had found tethered to the fountain.

"Lex! You're back!" Tai San's voice rang down from the top of the stairs. She received a steady glare in return.

"Care to explain our four legged friend here?" Lex growled, carefully side stepping as the horse turned its back end towards him.

"That's just Apollo," Tai San laughed. "He's very sensitive apparently. Come up and meet his owners."

Watching the horse suspiciously, and keeping well out of range, Lex made his way round the dry fountain and up the stairs, followed silently by Ved. When he reached the top of the stairs he was greeted by the sight of a young man with blue-green, spiky hair sitting miserably between Cloe and a girl of about the same age, both of whom were giggling in a manner that spoke to Lex of fluffy pink teddy bears and love hearts on school books. He groaned wearily.

"Hey, Clo," Ved called over, pushing past Lex. "Who's your new friend?"

"Ved!" Cloe squealed, jumping up and grabbing his arm to drag him to the table. "Ved, this is Patsy and KC," she said, brandishing a hand in the direction of each of the newcomers as she introduced them. "KC, Patsy, this is Ved."

KC raised a hand in a morose salute. Patsy, on the other hand, took on a look of recognition and understanding that made Ved certain he had made up at least part of the animated conversation the girls had been having when he arrived.

As Ved got dragged into a chair, Lex leant over and whispered something in Tai San's ear. She chuckled and nodded, stepping back to let him past.

"Hey, kiddo!" Lex interrupted loudly, placing a hand on KC's shoulder and dragging him to his feet. "I want a word with you. In private!"

xxxx

Siva looked around the luxury apartment nervously. An entire wall had been devoted to the group's crusade. Either end of the wall had been taken up with information about people. At one end, those who had disappeared, at the other, those involved with the project. The middle of the wall held an interactive white board. Siva dragged her eyes away from where Patch was setting up his new toy and looked down to the checkerboard section of missing persons, where Dee and Ellie were pinning photographs up next to information. Every person there had a normal, everyday photograph, but some had a second picture next to their name. Those second pictures were taken from the computer systems at the project building and showed what those people looked like in the virtual world. Siva had only found a handful of them, mainly ones who had entered the project legitimately. Trudy, Bray and Brady. KC and Patsy. Lex and Tai San. They had all been easy to find, their information grouped together in bundles. She hadn't found any information about Salene, May, Ved, Cloe, Jack or Ebony. If they were in there, somebody didn't want anyone to know about it.

"I'm going in," said a voice behind Siva, dragging her out of her reverie. She turned to see Amber.

"You what?" Siva frowned, confused.

"I'm going to volunteer for the project," Amber explained. "Dal's coming with me. So is Jewel. We're hoping that we'll have a better chance if we go in together. From what you've told us about the other testers, they all got to choose a starting point, then all started in the same place. We're going to choose the city and work outward from there. It seems the most likely starting point."

"What if you get stuck there?"

"Somebody has to take the risk. If we get stuck there then, between the three of us, we should have enough skills to help us survive. At least until you figure a way to get us out!"

The warm smile at the end of Amber's sentence did little to reassure Siva and she gave a half-hearted grin in reply.

"Look, you know us now, right?" Amber put a hand on Siva's arm and led her to a chair. They sat down and Amber watched Siva's expressions closely. "You can monitor our progress while we're in the program. I know it's not much, but if we're in trouble, then you can warn the others and, if necessary, get the authorities involved. I know we haven't got much to go on just now, but with you on our side it should be enough to convince them they need to take a serious look at the thing."

Siva nodded and looked up at Amber, meeting her gaze.

"I can do that, Amber," she said. "But if Ram or Mega find out what we're doing, I might not have a chance to call the authorities!"

xxxx

"Jack, give up!" Jetta sighed, as Jack hurled his shoulder against the door yet again.

"It looks like wood, it feels like wood, it-it even smells like wood, s-so it should break like wood!" Jack ranted, his anger and frustration spilling over. "We h-have to get out of here. Don't you understand? Wh-whatever is going on out there is-is not good and whoever put me in here obviously doesn't want me messing with it!"

"So therefore that's exactly what you want to try and do?" Jetta queried.

"Exactly!"

Jetta got up and walked over to Jack. The bruises he had gained from their captors had faded, but she was quite sure new ones would now be forming on his shoulder and upper arm. Taking hold of both his hands she led him back to the bed in the corner of the bare room and pushed him down on to it.

"If there is a way out of this room, Jack," she said, sliding the shirt off his shoulders and reaching for the sponge she had used to clean his earlier injuries. "You are not going to find it by beating yourself to a pulp."

Jack winced as the liquid in the sponge stung a graze in his skin. He shook his head and tried to stand. Jetta pushed him back down onto the bed, pinning him there with one knee on either side of him.

"I'm not giving up," Jack told her as she reached for a towel to dry the new wound.

"I wouldn't expect you to," Jetta replied. "Just change your methods, that's all."

"What break my foot instead of my arm, you mean?" Jack quipped cynically.

"No," said Jetta, throwing the towel to one side and putting a hand on each of Jack's shoulders. "You're a clever guy, Jack. If you built a prison in a virtual world like this, would you put the door in the doorway?"

Jack considered this and tipped his head to one side.

"No," he replied. "That-that would be a bit obvious."

"And we can assume that the guys who built this virtual world are clever too, right?"

"Right..."

"So there's no point in wasting your energy on a plan that won't work." Jetta's hands moved up either side of Jack's neck to his face. Her fingers slid through his hair and he gasped as she pulled his head backward. Taking her chance, she captured his lower lip with her own, moving her head to deepen the kiss when she felt him respond.

"Er... Jetta," Jack stammered, pulling away, breathless. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"Seducing you," Jetta purred, pushing him down onto the bed.

xxxx

Locked in her room once again, Ebony sat mournfully on the luxurious double bed. Her eyes were drawn inexorably to the silent pictures on the plasma screen on the opposite wall. A gilded cage is still a cage and she would give up every scrap of luxury to change places right now with the treacherous, blue-haired harlot on the screen before her.

But for all the hatred and loathing she felt for Jetta, what had hurt her most was just how easily he had given in.

As the screen faded to black, a single tear slipped silently down her cheek.


	30. Chapter 29

A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks. Things got rather busy for a while. I really was horrible leaving it there, wasn't I. Well, I hope this new chapter makes up for it a bit.

* * *

**Chapter 29**

"Whoa!" Jack pushed Jetta to one side and, in doing so, fell off the narrow bed. "Ow!"

"Really?" Jetta raised an eyebrow, looking down at him in curiosity and disbelief. "You're turning this down?"

"I... Um... H-How can I put this..." Jack stammered. "You're really nice and all... I mean, I'm sure most guys would... I mean... I, er... I..."

"You're just not one of them?"

"No," Jack sighed in relief.

"You don't like girls?" Jetta's eyebrow raised further.

"No, I mean yes, I mean... That's not the reason!"

"You're married?" Jetta queried.

"No..."

"With someone then, you know what I mean."

"Not exactly..."

Jetta sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, and peered down at him.

"Either you're with someone or you're not, Jack."

"There's someone I care about, alright," said Jack defensively, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "I just don't know," he took a deep breath, "I don't know how she feels about me. We're friends."

xxxx

Lex groaned as the distant noise grew gradually closer. Two hours! Enough already! How much more could they argue about! They'd been like love's young dream when they arrived. How could they get from that to this so quickly?"

"I believe our new friend Patsy may have said something injudicious," Tai San's serene voice floated across the cafe table to Lex.

"Something what?"

"Something she should not have said, Lex," Tai San explained.

"Oh. Right. Little twit."

"She is young. She will learn."

"She'd better or I'll..." Lex was cut off by the sound of a door slamming downstairs. "What the..."

"I believe Cloe has left the building," Tai San sighed. "I had better go and make sure she's alright."

"What? How..." Lex frowned: something wasn't right about that statement. Suddenly it clicked. "Tai San there aren't any doors downstairs!"

"There is a cupboard. I suggest you go and let Ved out of it."

xxxx

Amber groaned. It couldn't be morning yet: it was too dark. She felt someone shake her arm.

"Come on, Amber, wake up!" Dal's voice insisted in her ear.

"What is it, Dal? I'm tired," Amber groaned.

"Amber, wake up!" Dal's voice became sharper. "You're not at home, you're in the program!"

"What program?" Amber muttered sleepily. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. "The program! We're in it! You, me and Jewel. We're here?"

"We're here," Dal echoed as Amber looked around, taking in her surroundings. "We should be in the city, but, judging by the warehouse, I think we might have a bit of a walk to the centre."

"Where's Jewel?" Amber frowned, finally noting her friend's absence.

"That's just it," Dal shrugged. "I don't know. One minute, the three of us were side by side on the VR beds, the next minute I wake up here with you beside me and no sign of Jewel. She definitely agreed to choose the city as her starting point, right?"

"Definitely," Amber nodded. "Cities are big places, though. Maybe she's just in another part of it."

"Maybe," Dal shrugged again. "Maybe they separated us deliberately. Are you absolutely sure we can trust..."

"I'm sure," Amber cut Dal off hurriedly and fixed him with a meaningful stare. "I'm sure the people running this program can see everything we do and hear everything we say. They know what they're doing."

"So what happens now?"

"Well, it's like a game, isn't it?" Amber stood up and walked over to the two rucksacks lying on a nearby table. "We get a pack each and we have our own goals. I guess the first one is to find our friend." Moving the packs to one side, Amber picked up two pairs of roller blades. "At least with these we should be able to move about a bit faster."

xxxx

"Explain to me again what you're doing, Patch?" Ellie frowned down at the computer screen.

"Um," Patch pushed his glasses up on his nose in thought. It was the third time he'd explained his idea and he wasn't sure how much clearer he could make it. "I'm uploading the bits of the program that I have access to. I have my own excerpts, Jack's excerpts and Ved's excerpts."

"And you're going to try and run them here?"

"Yes."

"And this is going to help us how?"

"It might help us, it might not," Luke cut in, coming to Patch's rescue. "The more we know about how the program runs and what's in it, the better."

"Then why not just upload the entire program?"

"Patch has managed to hack into Jack's work and Ved's, but only because he knows them. He's added his own work to the set and is trying to set it up so that the three sets work together and we can have a look around inside them."

"He wants to put us in a mini version of the program?" Ellie raised an eyebrow, ignoring the impatient tutting and head shaking from Patch on her other side.

"No, he can run it on the whiteboard screen, like a normal computer game," Luke sighed.

"And then we can have a look inside it."

"Only the bits that Jack, Ved and Patch wrote, but yes, that's the idea."

"But how does that help us, Luke?" Ellie sighed and walked over to the whiteboard. "Jack, Ved and Patch aren't the ones running the show here. It's not their work we need to look at!"

"Okay, Ellie, look," Luke leant back against a table and crossed his arms. "We don't have anyone else's work to look at and, unless Siva pulls off an amazing feat of information technology theft, we never will. All we have are the minor programs written by our friends. Those programs are still important, however. We won't know how important until we see what they are and how they fit into the larger program, but they're as important as bricks in a wall and sometimes, if you move the right bricks in the right ways, that wall can come crashing down."

xxxx

Trudy deposited another two glasses on the bar and picked up the bar towel, turning to head back to clean the table she had just cleared. It was peaceful here, now that she had got over the initial shock and emotional turmoil brought on by her arrival, the stories of Slade and Ruby's arrivals, and the realisation that not everyone had the option of returning to the real world. She missed Brady, more than she could say, but as far as she could make out, the fastest way of getting back to her was to stay active and keep her muscles working while her injuries healed. And so, she waited tables in Liberty. It was easy work. Ruby was there to chat to and Slade had said he would drop by from time to time. Other people had come and gone, some staying for no more than a drink, others spending the night in one of the saloon's many rooms.

Trudy's thoughts turned again to the strange markings displayed by the people in this place. Most of them were individual and that didn't bother her much, especially since her makeup never seemed to get smudged and her nails never seemed to get chipped, but some markings were shared. Just a day or so ago, she had seen two kids turn up in Liberty with an identical pentagram marking to her own. Other small groups had came and went with one or two marks that linked them, but they had seemed to be complete groups. Trudy had never seen the two pentagram kids before in her life. At least, she didn't think she had. Maybe there was something familiar about them. Perhaps they lived in her area of town and the shared markings had something to do with that, like an area code for people. She smiled and shook her head. She'd be seeing bar codes on people next!

Maybe there was something to those marks though, she thought. Slade had said that his brother had programmed this world to keep peoples' minds active as well as their bodies. There were puzzles to be solved, and not just the crossword ones that Ruby hoarded. Perhaps it was time to look into that particular puzzle a bit more. Trudy bit her lip. The pentagram kids had said they were heading to the city. Slade would be back in a day or so. When he got back, Trudy decided, she would ask him to take her to the city. It couldn't hurt to have a look around after all.


	31. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

"What are you doing, Ebony?"

Ebony froze. The voice was cold, chilling, even evil. It also sounded amused. She turned round. There was nobody there. There was always nobody there. Even when the voice sounded as though it was right behind her. Even when she was sure she could feel the speaker's breath on the back of her neck. Even then, there was nobody there. She took a deep breath and turned back to the window frame she had been scraping at. Her breath came out in a sharp burst. The hole she'd been making in the old, dry mortar was gone. Looking down, she saw the small pile of grey dust at her feet, even the torn piece of wallpaper she had removed, breaking a nail in the process, was lying on the ground. She looked back at the wall. There were no signs the area around the window had been tampered with. The mortar was complete and covered by the old wallpaper. Even her broken nail, she saw, looking down at her hands, was back in place.

Turning, she slumped down, her back to the wall, and let her head fall into her hands. It was hopeless. The door and windows were solid. The walls magically repaired themselves. Food appeared without warning and whenever and wherever she wasn't looking. Whenever she got a new idea and it began to bear some fruit, the voice would interrupt her and when she looked back all her hard work would be gone. She only left the room, under armed guard, to travel in the police car with Zoot. Not that the armed guards were particularly necessary. A child could have led her from one prison to the other. She had already discovered, painfully, that if she moved more than a metre from either of her chaperones an intense electric current would flow through her body, paralysing her and sending her crashing to the ground.

She looked up as the television screen caught her attention again, the moving images drawing her eye. It was Jack again. He was still in the room with the blue haired woman. He was examining the bare wall of the room while she walked up behind him carrying a plate of food from somewhere. Ebony watched as the she slipped an arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. Jack had started at first, but now his attention was on the plate of food the woman was waving under his nose. He caught the plate on the second attempt and Ebony could see, if not hear, the woman's laughter as she spun away from him and led him over to sit down on the side of the bed. As they ate, the picture faded to black once more.

Ebony looked down to see a similar plate of food lying beside her on the floor. She picked up the apple from the plate and threw it full strength at the television. The screen crashed to the ground sending glass, plastic and wires everywhere. Ebony looked back to the plate and picked up the chunk of bread, biting into it before she looked up again. Chewing, she raised her head to survey her handiwork and froze. The television screen was back on the wall, in perfect condition as always. Ebony groaned and curled up in a ball on the floor by the plate.

xxxx

"You're in a weird mood all of a sudden," Jack frowned as he and Jetta divided their latest ration of food between them. "What was all that about?"

"We have enough food, water, shelter... Even a comfortable place to sleep," Jetta shrugged. "That's something to be thankful for in this world. Plus you're making progress on the door."

"Yeah, right," Jack snorted. "If by making progress you mean working out where it's not!"

"That is progress, though!" Jetta replied, gesturing in the direction of the walls. "The more places we know it's not, the fewer there are left to check and the more likely you are to find it soon."

"I guess there's some weird kind of logic to that..." Jack sighed. "I just wish I knew why they were keeping us here."

"It must be something to do with the work you did for them," said Jetta, leaning back on her elbows. "Take a break from the walls and let's go through the projects you worked on again."

"I don't know that we'll find anything there. I mean I only wrote a few individual pieces. The only one I know I can find in the city is the mall. The rest were almost entirely separate. They might not even be in the same virtual framework as we are now."

"What were they?"

Jack shrugged, shuffling backwards so that his back was against the wall and resting a foot on the edge of the bed so that he could rest his arm on his knee. If nothing else it would make it considerably more difficult for Jetta to try the same trick she had last time he'd been sitting there.

"There was the artificial intelligence programme, of course," he said, chewing his lip. "And then there was this research lab thing, off on an island and surrounded by land mines. It had to be protected, you see: that was the remit. So I put it on an island that was supposedly haunted, I put land mines in the ground all around it, I made it security card entry and half full of skeletons and then, to cap it off, I added an automatic lock down on an electronic tripwire."

"Just as well they didn't put us there!" Jetta laughed.

"That I can get out of," Jack shrugged. "I wrote it, after all."

"It has a secret door?"

"All my programs do. Some of them have whole other layers on the other side of secret doors. All of them lead out though."

"What else?"

"Well, not much," Jack's brow crinkled. "There was the maze, but that was just a minor thing and I don't think they could use it in this situation. The mall you know about. Then there was a sort of random, underwater coral reef thing that I worked on with Ved. The last thing I was working on was the hotel. I was just putting the finishing touches to the exterior when I got snatched and ended up here."

"It must be something to do with the hotel then," said Jetta. "Either something they needed to add or change, but they need you to do it."

"They wouldn't need me to add anything," Jack shook his head. "Not if it didn't alter the general structure of the building. A-And all they would need to change something would be my pass codes for the program. Those could be hacked if you knew what you were doing."

"So if they're not changing something or adding something, then what?" Jetta shrugged, frowning up at Jack.

Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I wish I knew," he said. "I really do."

xxxx

"Quiet! I can hear something," Salene hissed, her ear pressed to the wall of the room that should open onto a corridor, but instead refused to open at all.

"Probably our friendly neighbourhood crazies discussing what they're going to do with us," was May's acid reply from the bed on the opposite side of the room. "If they have finally decided, at least it'll be a change from being stuck in here!"

"I don't think so. It doesn't sound like them," said Salene, ignoring May's surly tone. "I think there's a girl there. I think they're talking about computers, I'm sure I heard the guy say something could be hacked."

"Limbs can be hacked," May reminded her.

"Yeah, I know, May," Salene sighed, looking over her shoulder at the black and red hair and outfit that lay along the farthest bed from the door. "I'm sure I heard the word program too, though."

"Well, roll out the red carpet and hang up some bunting!" May sighed. "What does it matter unless they're on our side and can get that door open!"

Salene rolled her eye and turned back to the wall. Maybe the mystery voices were on their side, and maybe they could get the door open. One thing was certain: she would never find out unless she did something about it. Hammering on the wall with the heel of her hand, Salene began shouting.

"Hey! Hey you out there!" Salene yelled at the top of her voice. "Can you get us out of here? Please! We can't open the door from this side! Can you help us? Hey there! Can you hear me?"

xxxx

Amber grabbed Dal's arm and dragged him behind some overflowing rubbish bins. The siren was drawing closer again. It wasn't the first time they had encountered the crazies. The first time had been much closer. At that point, a police siren still meant order and safety to Dal and Amber. As soon as the car had turned the corner, however, they had known they were wrong. The crowd of oddly dressed kids and teenagers surrounding the graffiti covered vehicle had been warning enough, even before the cry of "Get them!" had reached their already fleeing ears. The roller blades had certainly proved useful; they would have been caught long ago without them. Dal risked sticking his head up above the parapet of the rubbish bins, only to be pulled back sharply by Amber.

"Are you nuts? They'll see us!" Amber hissed in his ear.

"There's a girl," Dal replied. "Out in the middle of the road. She must be deaf or something: she's not running!"

"Where?" Amber looked up over the bins and spotted the girl. Sure enough, she wasn't running or trying to hide. She was crying though. "She's upset," said Amber. "Wait here. I'll go get her."

"Amber, no!" Dal cried, reaching out a hand to hold his friend back and missing her by millimetres.

Dal wasn't aware that he was holding his breath as he watched Amber skate across the road and grab the girl's hand, leading her to the opposite side of the road and dragging her down behind some old boxes. He couldn't see or hear what Amber said to her, but he knew she would be trying to calm the girl down and keep her quiet and out of sight. He shook his head. They should have started at the farm, like he had suggested. Then at least it would be easier to find Jewel and take stock of what was going on around them.

Suddenly the siren intensified and Dal ducked back down as he saw the police car come careening round the corner. He watched with bated breath as the car, its entourage and its occupants glided noisily by. As the siren faded from his hearing, he felt a hand on his arm and looked up to see Amber looking down at him with a worried frown on her face.

"What is it Dal? You look like you've seen a ghost?"

"You could say that!" Dal's voice was higher than he remembered it, and he could hear it shaking. He put out a hand to steady himself. "Is the girl okay?"

"She's fine," said Amber, dragging Dal to his feet. "Do you recognise her? Look closely. The makeup put me off at first too."

Dal frowned as he stared at the girl's face, aware that a slight look of uncertainly and confusion was creeping in to her features. The girl looked nervously to Amber and suddenly it clicked.

"You're Cloe!" Dal cried, a smile breaking out across his own face. "Of course: I've seen your picture!"

"So I hear," said Cloe, still nervous. "Amber said you're here to find people?"

"A lot of people!" Amber added, raising her eyebrows. "One down, umpteen more to go, though, I guess."

"More than one," said Dal, turning from Cloe to his friend. "Weren't you watching the car as it went by?"

"I can honestly say I had other things on my mind," Amber shrugged. "Like them not seeing me?"

"You're not going to like this," Dal warned her, his face dropping again. "There were two people in the car, standing up through the sun roof. I recognised them both."

"But that's great, Dal!" Amber looked at him, frowning in puzzlement. "Why would you think I won't like that?"

"Well one of them is someone we're looking for," Dal nodded. "In fact, it's Ebony. I recognised her from the restaurant. She looked weird though, like she was in some sort of trance. The other person though, that's the one you're really not going to like."

"Why?" Amber's expression now was deadly serious.

"I didn't recognise him from the meetings," said Dal. "I recognised him from the newspapers." He paused as Amber's frown deepened even further. "It's Martin Fielding, Amber: Trudy Fielding's husband."

"But... But I thought he was dead?" Amber gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

"He is," Dal nodded. "I did the background check on the whole family. He definitely is dead!"


End file.
